An AV supplier provides the infrastructure of your event: sound, lighting, screens, staging and playback. A video production partner provides the broadcast layer: cameras, vision mixing, recording and live streaming. They are different disciplines, usually different companies, and the best events use both, planned together from the start. If you are deciding who to hire for a conference in 2026, the short answer is: hire an AV supplier for the room, hire a video production specialist for everything the camera sees, and introduce them to each other early. This guide explains where the line sits, where it blurs, and the questions that stop you paying twice for the same thing.
What an AV Supplier Owns
The AV company makes the room work for the people in it. PA systems and microphones, projection or LED screens, stage lighting, comms, set and staging, and the playback of presentations and videos into the room. Venues increasingly hold long-term integrated partnerships with AV suppliers, which is why your venue often recommends one before you have even signed.
What a Video Production Partner Owns
The video production company makes the event work for everyone who is not in the room, and for everyone who watches afterwards. Multi-camera filming, IMAG to the big screens, vision mixing, redundant recording of every session, live streaming to remote audiences, and the edited outputs: highlight reels, session videos and social cuts. Our guide to choosing a live event video production company covers the full evaluation.
Where the Line Blurs
Big-screen IMAG is the classic overlap: the AV supplier owns the screens, the video team owns the cameras and the cut that appears on them. Audio is the second: the AV desk mixes for the room, but the broadcast needs its own mix, because a mix that sounds right in a ballroom sounds wrong on a laptop. Ask both suppliers who owns the broadcast audio feed and you will learn a lot about how experienced they are.
Can One Company Do Both?
Some large AV houses offer filming as an add-on, and some video companies will quote for basic AV. For a small meeting that can be fine. For anything with an audience that matters, a stream, or content deliverables, the add-on model shows its seams: filming handed to a subcontracted two-person crew, one recorder with no backup, and nobody owning the edit. Specialists working together beat generalists working alone. It is how we work with AV partners like Vibration Production and Aztec on multi-stage shows, and it is why those shows run smoothly.
Questions That Protect Your Budget
Ask each supplier: exactly which services do you provide on this job, and which do you assume the other party provides? Who supplies the broadcast audio mix? Who records, and with what redundancy? Who delivers the content afterwards, in what formats, and by when? Where does IMAG switching happen? A ten-minute three-way call with both suppliers answers all of this and costs nothing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need both an AV company and a video production company?
For a conference with presentations, sound and screens plus filming or streaming: usually yes. The AV supplier serves the room, the video partner serves the camera and everything downstream of it.
Who should I book first?
Whichever is more critical to your event’s purpose. If remote attendance and content are the point, brief the video partner first and let them advise on what the AV setup needs to support them.
Does the venue’s in-house AV cover filming?
Rarely to broadcast standard. In-house AV teams are built for the room, not for multi-camera capture, redundancy and streaming. Check our cost guide to compare properly.
Planning an Event That Needs Both?
We work alongside the UK’s best AV suppliers every week, and we are happy to join a call with yours. Talk to us about your event, or explore our event services.
