- Hi, I'm Jordan, from Kettner Creative.
In this video I wanna talk to you about
the job of an audiovisual technician.
What's involved in the job,
what skills you need and what it takes
to be successful in the role.
Kettner Creative is an audiovisual company located
in Vancouver, BC.
We produce videos like this all the time.
So if you're an AV geek, or if you're just interested
in the audiovisual industry or event production industry,
please like and subscribe
to see more videos like this in the future.
An audiovisual technician is a technician
that helps with event technology,
mostly at corporate events.
It's the most broad job title
in the event production industry,
and specifically, it most commonly applies
to doing corporate work in ballrooms and meeting rooms.
Before we even get into the technical side of things,
the things that will help you succeed
in this role is bringing a friendly attitude,
being clean-cut and being able to have good oral
and written communication skills.
Often times you're dealing with clients
that have been looking forward to their event
for over a year.
Before they even walk into the door,
that brings a lot of stress and pressure
into the room when they come in.
It's your job, as an AV tech, to make sure
that all the technical things that
the client doesn't understand go fluidly
and happen seamlessly, and you need to do it
with a smile on your face,
while bringing calm to the situation.
Being an AV tech is not right for people who
are high strung, have high stress levels.
The people that are successful,
more often than not, are the people
that are calm and go about their way
in a calm manner, without letting the stress
of the clients influencing your ability
to troubleshoot technology.
Now what type of technology do you need
to know if you're an audiovisual technician?
You need to have a good understanding of audio.
Before anything else, you need to know
how analog consoles work and digital consoles.
You need to have a good understanding
of wireless microphones,
how to program their frequencies,
wired microphones, podium microphones,
condenser microphones, all that.
Bonus points if you have the ability to EQ a room,
and EQ speakers in a way that you can
have five lav mics turned on at once without feeding back.
That's the type of thing you're gonna encounter all
the time as an audio tech in your role
of audiovisual technician.
Now on the visual side, it helps
to have a good understanding of laptops,
both PC and Mac.
How to change their output display settings.
How PowerPoint and Keynote work.
And how to make everything run seamlessly.
You will be working with some video switchers,
but they're pretty basic and they're pretty bulletproof,
you just need to have a basic understanding of resolution.
It helps a lot if you have experience
with projectors and setting up screens.
If you've never set up a Fast-Fold screen before,
it's what you're gonna learn on day one,
and by the time you're at day two, you'll have
a good understanding of how that works.
Bonus points go for anybody that knows how lighting works,
specifically how to DMX a light,
how Lekos work, for stage wash,
and how up lights are generally set up in a room.
Now the things that will help you be successful,
not only are your attitude and your ability
to communicate with clients, but your ability
to be clean and do things in a predictable way.
A big part of the job is having clean tape runs,
clean cable runs, and being able to label things.
So if you get called out halfway through your shift,
somebody else can sit down and they understand
what you're doing.
You can be the best event tech in the world,
but if you do things in a weird way
that don't allow somebody else to come sit
in the seat right after you,
that will make it difficult and you'll probably
get less shifts because of that.
It's also super helpful if you have your drivers license.
If you have a flexible schedule
and you have experience driving a Sprinter van,
or a three ton or a five ton in a downtown environment.
Those are the type of things that will get you more hours.
Now, if you're in the in-house role,
say you work on-site at a hotel all the time,
you can expect that your hours will
be semi-regular, obviously when you're starting
you'll probably get the worst shifts,
the early mornings and the late nights,
but as you move up you'll probably end up
in some sort of a predictable schedule,
since they have so many meetings on a regular schedule.
If you're working for an outside AV company,
like ours, your schedule is a little more chaotic,
but you can expect better pay.
In terms of pay, the role of AV technician,
if you're just starting out you'll definitely
be around that $15 to $18 an hour mark.
As you gain experience, depending on all the skills
that you bring to the table, and how well you get along
with your team, and contribute
and all that type of stuff, you can expect
to be somewhere between $25 and $45 an hour.
That's the current rate around 2020.
And again, there's a lot of variables
in that, but generally the easier you are to work with,
and the more skills that you bring
and the more flexibility you have,
the more your gonna get paid,
it's really as simple as that.
If you have any other questions about what's involved
in the role of audiovisual technician,
please leave a comment in the comment section below.
I think it's a super rewarding job,
I really enjoy the fact
that every single day every event has to be perfect.
That's what wakes me up in the morning,
is delivering those perfect events every day.
And, every day, you never know what you're gonna see.
Sometimes you're at an auto show,
sometimes you're at a medical conference,
sometimes you're at an exclusive private party,
it really is all over the map
and it can be pretty exciting if that's what you enjoy.
But yeah, if you wanna see more videos like this,
please like and subscribe.
And if you have any questions, please comment below.
Thank you so much for watching.