If I were to show you inside a business that can pull off festival sized production setups, what would you expect to see? That’s likely not something you’ve thought a whole lot about.
After all, why would you? You plan the events. We bring our production expertise and help make your event happen. Simple. Right?
Sure. But events have this uncanny ability to build strong relationships. So, we want to tell you a bit about who we are.
Call it a behind the behind the scenes—if you want. We really don’t mind.
From Humble Beginnings
AV Events began with a single camera.
Scott and Shona started the business from scratch, moving up to a van and a projector before continuing to slowly build their way up. Three factories and nearly thirty years later, AV Events is continuing to crush it in the New Zealand events space.
We now consist of three vans, two Jeeps, one ute, one big truck (we call it Steve), one slightly smaller truck (we call it Alan), one car that at some point was nicknamed “the Smurf” (don’t ask why), one thousand square metres of production gear, and one little dog called Murphy who thinks he runs the place.
This month of December has been no exception, with many companies celebrating their year in style.
HP Partner Awards 2023
Working with Type 40, the 2023 HP Partners Awards took place at Shed 10 in Auckland. After doing curtain drops (or more accurately, Kabuki drops) for a couple of years at this event, we thought we’d have a bit of fun with the audience.
As the Rock N’ Roll themed awards came to an end, rock icon John Toogood hit the button and dropped the Kabuki. But instead of revealing the after-party, the crowd was met with an empty room—a few road cases scattered throughout, and a cleaner sweeping with a broom.
“There’s no backstage party this year, sorry,” they said, feigning surprise.
“But, there is a party downstairs!”
Oh, and most importantly: 10, incredible, people.
10 people who regularly work long hours. They deal with technical challenges, pull all-nighters, spend time away from family, work weekends, work through venue problems, and work through the freezing cold of winter and the sweltering heat of summer—you just can’t question their commitment.
That is our crew. That is our family. AV Events wouldn’t be where it is today without the hard work and dedication of this team, something we are sure you would have noticed.
Our Home Base
Our warehouse is split into two areas. The first half consists of four aisles, one for each of our departments: rigging/theming, audio, lighting, and vision. The second half is our prep area, where we get gear ready for each of our shows.
In the summer it becomes one big sauna. In the winter, one big fridge.
Surrounding the edge of our space are bays of multi-levelled-racking. We use an electric lifter, nicknamed “Mater,” to access what we need. After all, there ain’t nothing like a Crown for picking it up and putting it down.
On a normal day in the office, lunch is at 12 pm, sharp—our second favourite time of the day. King Murphy is wheeled in on his plush, leather office chair (I’m not kidding). And we make use of our three-high microwave tower (we always need more).
One random tradition that we’ve instituted is a thing I like to refer to as ‘the movie relay.’ You see, we like to watch movies at lunchtime as a crew. But lunch is only 30 minutes long. So, we watch through movies, 30 minutes at a time, over several days. Thus, ‘the movie relay.’
And we definitely. Never. Ever. Go over our allocated 30-minute slot to finish a movie. Definitely not...
Birthday celebrations are another long-standing tradition. Cheesecake is our preferred method of doing so. So…
…if it’s someone’s birthday, they buy the team cheesecake. We think it’s a fair deal.
Work With Us
That is a little bit about us. We are just a tight-knit crew who has built a reputation for being one of New Zealand’s leading production companies. Some of us have been in the industry for decades. Some of us have literally grown up in it. And some of us are just stepping up into it.
But we always strive to hone our craft, both for the satisfaction of a flawless event and to give you the peace of mind you crave as an event planner.
Check Out Our New Lights!
Introducing our new LED pixel tubes! They have opened up whole new creative possibilities for us. We can hang them in any orientation, change them to any colour, and even map individual pixels within them to create unique effects.
Oh, and they are wireless! So they can be placed in spaces where it is just impossible to get cabling.
We see a lot of potential for these. They are a beautiful piece of eye candy that your guests will love, and so we hope you’ll consider putting them on your next event.
Check Out Our New Lights!
Believe it or not, but the mid to latter half of the year is already filling up for us. We would absolutely love to work with you and help bring your event to life. So please plan ahead and get in touch now.