After more than 35 years working on conferences and live events across Europe, I have learned that most AV problems do not begin when somebody presses the wrong button.

They begin days, weeks or sometimes months earlier.

A vague brief is accepted. A technical decision is postponed. Nobody checks how the room actually sounds. Presentations arrive five minutes before the speaker is due on stage. A venue says it has “good Wi-Fi”, so everyone assumes that a remote presentation will work.

Then the conference opens and all those small assumptions suddenly become very visible.

Most conference AV failures are not dramatic equipment breakdowns. They are usually the result of poor planning, unclear responsibilities and technical details that nobody properly tested.

Here are some of the most common mistakes I have seen — and how to avoid them.

1. Starting with equipment instead of the event

One of the first mistakes is asking:

“What AV equipment do we need?”

That is the wrong place to start.

The first questions should be about the conference itself.

How many delegates will be in the room? What is the seating layout? How many people will be speaking? Will there be panel discussions? Audience questions? Videos? Remote speakers? Simultaneous interpretation? Recording? Streaming?

Only when those questions have been answered can somebody design an appropriate technical system.

Saying “we need a screen and four microphones” is not a technical brief.

A useful brief should include the room layout, stage position, presentation format, speaker numbers, programme structure, video requirements, remote contributors, accessibility requirements and anything else that affects how the event will operate.

Ideally, the production team should also have a session-by-session running order.

That tells them far more than an equipment list ever will.

2. Assuming the venue’s standard AV package will be suitable

Conference venues often offer convenient AV packages.

There is nothing wrong with that.

The problem comes when organisers assume that a package designed to cover a wide range of events will automatically be right for their particular conference.

It might be.

But it needs checking.

A room for 300 delegates seated theatre-style has very different requirements from the same room being used for a small awards dinner, exhibition or workshop.

Screen size, projection brightness, loudspeaker coverage, stage lighting, microphone requirements and control positions should all be considered in relation to the actual event.

I have worked in impressive venues where the standard technical installation was perfectly adequate for one type of event and completely inappropriate for another.

The building does not adapt itself to your programme.

The technical design has to.

3. Treating sound as secondary

Good sound is one of the most important parts of any conference.

Delegates may tolerate a fairly ordinary stage set.

They will not tolerate spending an entire day struggling to understand the speakers.

Speech intelligibility matters more than simply making the system louder.

Room acoustics, loudspeaker positioning, microphone selection, reverberation, background noise and even air-conditioning can affect whether the audience can hear properly.

Microphone technique matters too.

Experienced presenters are not always experienced microphone users.

A handheld microphone held somewhere around chest height will not perform particularly well. A lapel microphone fitted badly can pick up clothing noise. A headset microphone positioned incorrectly can sound thin or unstable.

These are small details, but conferences are full of small details.

Give speakers a quick practical briefing and allow enough time for the sound engineer to check the system properly.

And do not only listen from the control desk.

Walk around the room.

What sounds excellent at the back of the technical area may sound completely different in the front row or underneath a balcony.

4. Leaving presentations until the last minute

Few things create unnecessary pressure at conferences quite like speakers arriving with presentations on USB sticks immediately before their sessions.

Sometimes it works.

Sometimes it does not.

PowerPoint and Keynote presentations can behave differently when moved between computers. Fonts disappear. Videos fail to play. Embedded audio vanishes. Links require internet access. Unusual aspect ratios appear. Presenter View behaves unexpectedly.

None of these problems is particularly difficult to solve when you have time.

They become much more interesting when 500 delegates are sitting in the room waiting.

Whenever possible, collect presentations in advance.

Test the actual files on the actual presentation system.

Keep local copies of important videos, graphics and media rather than relying entirely on internet connections.

And establish who is responsible for operating the presentations.

A speaker should ideally be concentrating on speaking, not worrying about whether their laptop is connected to the correct HDMI adapter.

5. Assuming venue Wi-Fi is enough for hybrid events

Hybrid conferences introduce another layer of risk.

A venue may quite legitimately advertise excellent Wi-Fi for delegates while the connection required for streaming or remote speakers needs something entirely different.

Sending emails and browsing websites is not the same as maintaining a stable live video contribution.

If a remote presenter is important to the programme, test the connection properly.

Confirm bandwidth, network access, firewall restrictions and whether a dedicated wired connection is available.

Then test the complete workflow.

Can the remote presenter hear the room?

Can the room hear the remote presenter?

Can they see the correct content?

Can delegates hear audience questions?

What happens if the connection fails?

A successful Zoom call from a hotel bedroom the previous evening does not prove that the conference system is ready.

6. Forgetting that audience questions need microphones too

This sounds obvious.

It is surprisingly often overlooked.

A conference can have excellent sound reinforcement for the stage and then completely fall apart during audience questions.

Somebody halfway down the room asks a question without a microphone. The presenter hears part of it. The audience hears almost none of it. Remote delegates hear silence.

If questions are part of the programme, plan how they will work.

For larger rooms, this may require roaming handheld microphones and somebody responsible for getting them to delegates quickly.

In my experience, a good chairperson can make an enormous difference here.

A chairperson who clearly indicates which delegate will ask the next question gives the sound engineer or microphone runner time to get the microphone into position before that person starts speaking. A really good chair may even indicate who will be asking the following question, which gives the microphone team time to prepare.

That helps keep the discussion flowing.

And conversation flow matters.

A good conference discussion should feel as natural as a conversation in a small meeting room where microphones are not required. The technology should not interrupt that exchange. In a large conference room, however, microphones are essential if everybody in the room — and especially anybody listening remotely — is going to hear the discussion properly.

There is another technical detail that is easily missed.

Make sure the audience Q&A microphones have a separate feed to a speaker monitor on stage.

The main loudspeaker system may give the audience perfectly clear sound, but that does not necessarily mean the presenter can hear a question coming from halfway down the room. A properly controlled monitor feed allows the person answering the question to hear it clearly without relying on sound coming back from the main PA.

For hybrid events, the audience microphones also need to reach the remote programme feed clearly. Otherwise, online delegates hear the answer without properly hearing the question that prompted it.

The aim is not simply to amplify people.

It is to preserve the natural rhythm of a conversation while making sure everyone — on stage, in the room and online — can follow it.

The Q&A is part of the programme.

It deserves the same technical planning as the presentations.

7. Putting the technical control position somewhere convenient rather than useful

Conference organisers understandably want to maximise delegate seating.

That can lead to technical control positions being pushed into corners, behind pillars or into locations where the operators cannot properly see or hear the stage.

This is false economy.

The people operating sound, lighting, video and presentations need to understand what is happening in the room.

A sound engineer particularly needs to hear something reasonably representative of what the delegates are hearing.

If the control position is hidden behind a wall or positioned in a separate room, that becomes much harder.

The technical area is not wasted space.

It is part of the conference infrastructure.

8. Allowing too little setup and testing time

One of the most common conference planning mistakes is building a timetable that allows equipment to be installed but does not allow the event to be tested properly.

Those are two different things.

A system being switched on does not mean it is ready.

Microphones need checking.

Presentations need testing.

Videos need playing.

Remote contributors need connecting.

Lighting states need confirming.

Walk-on music needs checking.

Confidence monitors need testing.

Speaker names and titles need confirming.

Stage transitions need rehearsing.

If the first time the complete system is tested is when the first delegate enters the room, the schedule has failed.

Build technical testing into the production timetable as a real activity.

Do not treat it as spare time at the end of the setup.

9. Skipping rehearsals because the speakers are experienced

Experienced speakers can still benefit from rehearsals.

In fact, sometimes the most experienced speakers have the most complex presentation requirements.

A rehearsal is not about teaching somebody how to give a speech.

It is about confirming how that particular speaker fits into that particular conference.

Where do they walk on?

Which microphone are they using?

Who advances the slides?

Where is the confidence monitor?

Is there a countdown timer?

What happens after their presentation?

Are there questions?

Are they handing over to another speaker?

A five-minute conversation on stage can prevent a surprisingly large number of problems later.

10. Having no clear chain of responsibility

Technical problems become much worse when nobody knows who is authorised to make decisions.

The sound engineer may notice that the programme is running late.

The event manager may know that the next speaker has not arrived.

The presentation operator may have been given a replacement slide deck.

The venue may be waiting for approval to change the room lighting.

If those people are receiving different instructions from different sources, confusion follows very quickly.

Every conference should have clearly defined responsibilities.

Who is calling the show?

Who approves programme changes?

Who briefs speakers?

Who communicates with the venue?

Who makes decisions when the timetable starts slipping?

A shared production schedule or event sheet should contain current timings, contacts, room layouts, technical information and escalation routes.

Version control matters too.

There is little value in producing an excellent running order if half the crew are working from yesterday’s version.

11. Having equipment backups but no operational backup

People often think technical contingency means having spare equipment.

That is part of it.

But sometimes the more important question is:

How does the conference continue if something fails?

If the presentation computer stops working, is there another playback system ready?

If the internet connection fails, can the remote presentation continue another way?

If the main screen goes blank, can the speaker carry on?

If one microphone fails, can another be handed over immediately?

You do not need two of absolutely everything.

You need to identify the failures that could stop the event and decide in advance what you will do about them.

That is the difference between owning spare equipment and having a contingency plan.

The best AV is often the AV nobody notices

Good conference production should not constantly draw attention to itself.

Delegates should be able to hear.

They should be able to see.

Presentations should appear when expected.

Videos should play.

Remote speakers should join smoothly.

Sessions should move from one to another without long technical pauses.

When that happens, most delegates will never think about the work happening behind the scenes.

That is usually a good sign.

After decades working on conferences, I have found that reliable AV is rarely about having the most expensive equipment in the room.

It is about understanding the event, planning carefully, communicating clearly and testing everything that matters before the audience arrives.

The equipment is only one part of the system.

The people, planning and preparation are what make it work.

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