A/V/L Design/Installation Company

[turbomitch]

We're starting the process of building a video venue on our campus to help keep up with our church's growth. We're interviewing companies to do the audio consulting, design, and installation of all of the A/V/L for the new space.
Does anyone have any suggestions of companies we should look into?

[Esoteric]

Just don't know of many in MO. If you are interested in a nationwide search shoot me a message and I have some names for you.

Mike

[Brad Weber]

It might help to first establish if you are looking for one company to provide everything from beginning to end or if the concept is to have one party provide consulting and possibly design with other firms, either via a negotiated effort to through bidding, providing the equipment and installation.

Also, do you see there being any specific logic to limiting it to companies within a certain distance from your facility or are you open to providers from other areas? Or maybe open to remote consulting and design but wanting local support on the system installed? Any of these can work, although there may be some practical limitations. For instance, on a larger project a firm some distance away may be able to offset any travel costs with being more efficient elsewhere, but on smaller projects that much offset may not be possible.

Finally, you mentioned A/V/L but then describe it as a video venue. Without necessarily going in to too much detail, what do you see as the scope of the work?

I ask all this because being just 30 miles or so outside downtown St. Louis you probably have a number of firms with varying services and specialties in that area, much less those located elsewhere.

[petereit]

Originally Posted by turbomitch

We're starting the process of building a video venue on our campus to help keep up with our church's growth. We're interviewing companies to do the audio consulting, design, and installation of all of the A/V/L for the new space.
Does anyone have any suggestions of companies we should look into?

Take a look at Theer & Associates.

I've known Lonnie Theer for most of my life (grew up a couple of houses up the street from him.) His firm has done projects from small-town 100-member churches all the way up to the PA system at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's 80,000-seat Memorial Football Stadium. And he's done plenty of projects in Missouri.

His team is scary good.

Tell him Mark Petereit (pronounced Peter Right) sent you.

[johnshelly12]

Just don't know of many in MO. If you are interested in a nationwide search shoot me a message and I have some names for you.

[johnshelly12]

I've known Lonnie Theer for most of my life (grew up a couple of houses up the street from him.) His firm has done projects from small-town 100-member churches all the way up to the PA system at the University of Nebraska Lincoln's 80,000-seat Memorial Football Stadium. And he's done plenty of projects in Missouri.

His team i

[johnshelly12]

fine/......................

[racersax]

Do any of you non-staff A/V folks have your church authority to contact supply vendors? How is new equipment ordered in your church? How do you convince "management" that new items are needed?
Could we discuss these points?

[petereit]

I have authority to contact vendors to research solutions. I bring my requests to my pastor by first, clearly defining the problem, then presenting three solutions:

1. Do nothing (I clearly spell out the consequences)
2. A workaround solution that will "get us by for now" (cheap or free, but usually causes extra work/volunteer time)
3. A budget solution (MIGHT solve the problem and save us money! But usually only in the short-term)
4. The "do it the right way" solution (costs more but eliminates the problem)

Ultimately the decision how to proceed is Pastor's decision. I provide him with complete equipment lists, vendors and prices. He usually finds a different vendor at a better price, because he has a real anointing for that.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by racersax

Do any of you non-staff A/V folks have your church authority to contact supply vendors? How is new equipment ordered in your church? How do you convince "management" that new items are needed?
Could we discuss these points?

This is one where you probably want to tread lightly if you do not have authority. A church in this area developed a reputation for having representatives approach companies, make agreements, get related product demos, designs, equipment lists, etc. only to then subsequently claim those individuals did not have the authority to make any commitments on behalf of the church. They would then take the information they had thus obtained for free from qualified providers and give it to their chosen firms, who apparently were not able to provide such services. In my one experience with that church, and one was all it took, it seemed pretty clear that the church leadership not only supported but actually routinely used that approach to the point that they apparently sometimes could not get ay firms to respond to them.

Another church I worked with apparently had some of the people involved disgree with the direction the majority of the church leadership was heading and without consulting anyone else went and committed the church to a radically different, and more expensive, audio system option that reflected their preferences. The church felt obliged to honor the commitments made, so they ended up not only paying for two different designs but also with a system that was not what most of the church leadership wanted while costing them more.

These are certainly the minority of such situations but they do reflect how one may have to be careful of how one presents the situation and understanding of any reluctance to work with such an arrangement. Definitely a situation where one should be clear and upfront about the situation and your role.

[petereit]

Wow! I guess I should clarify: instead of "vendors" I should have probably said "manufacturers". We would NEVER consult with a value-added reseller, then turn around and buy the products they recommended from someone else.