Venue AV specs and free tools for technicians

Arriving to unknown kit

Most AV technicians know the feeling. The brief said "house screens available", but nobody said what resolution, what aspect ratio, what input, or where the processor lives. The foyer has branding screens, but nobody's sure who controls them. Power is "in the corner", and rigging is "probably fine".

Those unknowns turn into adaptors you didn't pack, content scaled badly on an LED wall, and an hour lost tracking down the venue's in-house tech. The information usually exists; it just never made it to you.

What a venue pack lists for AV

For participating venues, BES gathers the AV-relevant detail with the venue team and keeps it accurate:

• Screens: locations, resolutions and specs
• Branding screens: where they are and how they're controlled
• Power: what's available and where
• Rigging: rigging points and associated details
• Spaces and access: floor plans, capacities and load-in routes

Open the example room page to see how it's laid out; the venue is fictional. Venues share packs through a secure link created for a specific request, with an expiry date, so your production manager can pass it straight to you. Real venue coverage is growing as founding venues join.

Free tools for AV work

Our directory lists tools AV teams use for show control, timing, streaming, communication and production. Each tool has a short write-up so you can see what it does before you install anything. No account is needed to browse.

Who keeps the information right

BES gathers venue information with the venue and updates it with them. If you find something wrong on site, tell the venue or tell us, and it gets corrected for the next crew.

Questions to settle before show day

Even with a venue pack, a few questions are worth confirming with the venue's in-house team: which inputs the house screens accept and where the nearest patch point is; whether branding screens take a feed from your system or run their own content; which power circuits are shared with catering or lighting; and who holds the keys to the rigging and control rooms.

Writing those answers into the show file means the next technician on the job, possibly you again, starts from a better place. That's the same idea behind venue packs: practical detail gathered once, kept accurate and shared with the people who need it.