What AV Do I Need?.

The simplest guide is guest numbers and whether you are indoors or outdoors. As a rough rule, a single pair of powered speakers on stands covers a tight indoor room of up to around 100 to 150 people for speeches and background music, while 150 to 400 guests usually needs a larger PA with subwoofers, and crowds beyond roughly 400 move into line array territory. Outdoor events need noticeably more power than the same headcount indoors, because there are no walls or ceiling to reflect sound back to the audience.

A conventional point-source PA uses individual speaker boxes on stands or stacks, and is ideal for rooms and crowds up to a few hundred people. A line array hangs or stacks many slim speaker elements in a vertical column so they behave as one tall source, throwing sound evenly over long distances with less drop-off front to back. As a rough teaching threshold, you start considering line array once the audience is in the high hundreds or thousands, or the throw distance is large, such as an outdoor festival field.

For a single speaker a lectern or handheld mic is enough, but for a panel plan on one microphone per two people as a comfortable minimum, or one each if they will talk over one another. Lapel or headset mics suit presenters who need their hands free, while a roving handheld is worth having for audience questions. Always budget a spare channel and spare batteries, as wireless mics are the most common point of failure on the day.

A large flat-screen TV is fine for small rooms of roughly 30 to 50 people viewing from close range, but past that a projector and screen scales far better for a crowd. A common rule of thumb is that the furthest viewer should sit no more than about six times the screen height away, so size the screen to your room rather than the projector. Check ambient light too, as bright rooms and daylight wash out projection and may call for a brighter projector or an LED wall instead.

Outdoor and marquee sites rarely have enough mains power, so plan early for either a generator or proper power distribution from a suitable supply. Sound, lighting and vision should be spread across circuits so a single load does not trip a breaker mid-show, and cabling needs weatherproofing and safe routing away from foot traffic. As a planning habit, add headroom above your expected draw rather than running a generator at its limit, and keep AV power separate from catering equipment like fridges and urns.