One of the greatest boons to living in a big city like Sydney is that, whatever you want, you can pick up the phone book or browse online and find it in a matter of minutes. If you want to try an Indian Curry restaurant, there are more than a few in the area. If you want to find a music store at two in the morning, likewise.
For all their charm, small towns just do not have that, and that's why city folk live where they live: The sheer wealth of options available to you at any moment of the day.
Of course, all this choice can also be one of the most frustrating things about living in Sydney. If you have over a hundred different companies you might call every time you want to order a pizza, it can get, well, a little overwhelming.
Of course we're not just talking about restaurants, but every market in a big city. There are roughly four and a half million Sydneysiders, and that means that every market in the city is going to be a competitive one. With nearly five million people in the city, that's more than enough to keep hundreds of AV companies in business.
Hiring an AV company is not exactly the same as going out for dinner. An AV project is a big project, and will likely help shape your brand image if all goes well (and even more so if all does not go well). It's not the kind of thing where you pick whatever's listed first in the yellow pages and make the call, rather, it's a decision you need to make with a bit of care and forethought.
With that in mind, here are the only two things you need to know to narrow your search down a bit.
1. Do not just stick to the big names
This is true no matter what you're shopping around for. Many of the big name companies got there by being able to produce efficient, effective and superb work, and we're not saying that it's impossible to get great results from a big name AV company, but what it boils down to is that, at the end of the day, you're just another client to them. They have hundreds, if not thousands of people asking for something very similar to what you're asking for, and while they may deliver professional results, they probably will not have the time to treat you with the individual attention your project needs.
Think of it this way- A big name fast food company will have sold billions of hamburgers the world over, because they're able to consistently produce "on par" food at a low price thanks to their mass produced ingredients and assembly-line approach to cooking. Fast food is fine when you're busy and need a quick bite, but is it really as good as going to a nice restaurant and having a steak cooked just the way you like it? Of course not. Big companies just do not have the time to give each customer their undivided attention.
A smaller AV company will be accompanied by a smaller, more tight knit team, and they work with only a fraction of the clients a big company deals with, meaning that you are, in fact, a valued client, and not just a customer.
2. Priority number one: Communication
Let's say you need to rent a projector and hire a crew to create a slideshow presentation. You call one company and they tell you it'll be ready in a week, they quote a price, and they hang up. Now, you call another … they ask you a lot of questions, they want to discuss the project in depth and get a really solid understanding of what it is that you want. They quote a price, but they also explain what that price means, what the project entails.
Obviously, you want to hire the second company you called, the one more interested in your audio visual project as a project, and not just as a number, as just another job to do. You need to communicate well with them, and they need to communicate well with you. Because when it comes down to it, AV production is really only about communication.