Do-It-Yourself AV Budget Calculator

Many times people are not ready to acquire a new system but will ask us to help them prepare a budget for planning purposes. We are happy to do that, but we also thought we could create a tool that would help you work up some numbers on your own, day or night, seven days per week. Try out the AV budget calculator by LightWerks designed to help with your planning.

Below we discuss the various kinds of rooms that most companies are outfitting these days with state-of-the-art communication technology, and what they might include.

Reception Areas

We all know that first impressions really count, so many businesses and institutions make a special effort to have a welcoming, and sometimes impressive, reception area. Today most will include at least one large flat panel and a digital signage player to welcome guests and share company promotional information. Some will also include speakers to provide audio to go along with their video content, and some will also include interactive capabilities to allow visitors to interact with the information shown on the flat panel display(s). As this room is typically in use all day and most displays can be programmed internally to turn on and off at specific times each day, reception areas do not usually require any sort of dedicated control system. Our AV budget calculator will help you determine the most cost effective approach for you.

Huddle Rooms (aka Small Conference Rooms)

Huddle rooms are defined as small conference areas that are equipped with audio, video and display system technology. These rooms are often used by groups who want to get together for impromptu, or previously scheduled, meetings to collaborate on projects. These spaces are becoming more and more prevalent, and important, as newer offices are often built with more open-floor designs. While these floor plans may have fewer private offices, they will typically have numerous huddle rooms or huddle spaces to allow people to collaborate in a more private, and quiet, environment.

Our definition also includes the hardware and software to allow users to conduct cloud-based audio- and video-conferencing on-the-fly in meetings across a campus, or across the country.

Medium-Sized Conference Rooms

A conference room is a room provided for singular events such as business meeting and conferences. It can be found in almost any kind of establishment – businesses, schools, hospitals, and government institutions. A medium-sized conference room would seat 6 to 12 people and would typically be used for scheduled meetings. It would typically include a flat panel display, audio- and video-conferencing capability, a variety of connections for desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and phones, and some type of centralized control capability to turn equipment on and off and switch between sources.

Boardrooms

A boardroom is similar to a medium to large conference room, but is distinguished by the users of the space and the critical importance of the work done by these users. It is typically used by senior management, or may be used as a primary space for meeting with and closing business with major clients. It is usually a one-of-a-kind type space within an institution.

Because of the importance of the business conducted in this space, a Boardroom will typically have higher grade equipment than other conference rooms, including larger and higher resolution flat panel displays or projection systems, superior audio- and video-conferencing equipment, power screens, power lifts to hide or reveal equipment, more sophisticated digital routing capability, and a more sophisticated, graphically impressive control system.

All-Associate Meeting Spaces / Multi-Purpose Rooms

Many institutions recognize the need to meet as one large group from time-to-time and, unless they want to take everyone off-site to a hotel ballroom or some other large venue, they will often create a large meeting space in their main offices. This space can serve multiple purposes…for example it could also serve as the cafeteria, training facility, gaming space, or another conference room space for casual meetings.

In order to support it’s use as an all-associate meeting space, it will typically need to have multiple displays (perhaps a projector or two at the front of the room and flat panels along the side walls), properly-tuned audio systems for excellent voice intelligibility and program audio reproduction, wireless microphones for presenters and audience members, sophisticated audio- and video-conferencing capability for meetings which may be shared between multiple locations, recording capability for later play-back, and custom-programmed control systems for better control of equipment, and possibly lighting, shades, and air conditioning.

Start your calculation!

Please complete the AV budget calculator that will allow you to simply build a rough AV budget range for any combination of the room types. You may then email the results of the AV budget calculator to yourself or any colleague you wish.