Live Events/Why in-house A/V costs more
Why in-house A/V
costs what it costs.
It's not because the gear is fancier or the crew is more qualified. Most planners don't know the actual arrangement between hotels and their preferred A/V vendor. Once you know it, the pricing makes sense — and so does the alternative.
The venue-vendor profit share.
Most major hotel chains sign multi-year exclusive or preferred-vendor agreements with a national A/V company. Under those agreements, the A/V company shares a percentage of every event's A/V revenue back to the hotel. Typical rates run somewhere between 15% and 40%.
That kickback has to be paid for. It gets built into the pricing. So when the in-house vendor quotes you $30,000 for a show, roughly $5,000 to $12,000 of that is going back to the hotel — before any of it pays for gear, crew, or operator time.
I want to be clear: this isn't a scandal. It's a standard commercial arrangement. Hotels get event revenue without staffing an A/V department. Vendors get guaranteed volume. But it does mean the planners paying the invoice are effectively subsidizing the venue's commission — and most planners don't realize that's the math they're paying.
- Exclusive or preferred vendor status in the venue contract
- Revenue share to venue — 15–40% typical
- Automatic default to in-house unless the planner opts out
- Additional fees for outside vendors that discourage the opt-out
One-and-a-half to two-and-a-half times market.
For the same gear list and the same crew positions, in-house quotes at major DC hotels routinely land at 1.5× to 2.5× what an outside vendor charges. Sometimes more, depending on the venue's revenue-share terms.
I want to be careful here — the in-house vendor isn't gouging anyone. They're pricing to cover the venue commission plus their own overhead. The math works out to a higher number, and there's nothing dishonest about it. It's just an expensive default that most planners are opted into without ever being told what they're paying for.
No kickback to build in.
We don't have a revenue-share arrangement with any DC venue. We rent our own gear from the same rental houses the in-house vendors use. We hire the same caliber of crew — sometimes literally the same individuals, on their off days.
Our pricing reflects what we actually pay for gear, crew, and overhead, plus an honest margin. That's it. No commission to absorb.
For most events at DC hotels, our number lands somewhere between 40% and 60% of the in-house quote, for the same technical spec. We'll happily walk you through the line-item comparison if you're evaluating the switch.
More on hotel A/V
and the alternative.
Send us the venue,
the date, the agenda.
Bullet-point a brief and we'll come back same-day with a rough number and a list of clarifying questions. If we're wrong for the room we'll tell you that, too.