The next time you're planning on holding a conference, seminar, product launch or any occasion that requires a high level of organisation and communication, consider hiring a company offering event management services.

The fact is that managing an event all the way from the planning stage to a successful occasion is a highly complex and demanding affair that demands the utmost in experience and professionalism.

Enter the event management firm - a company that specialises in providing not only the planning and management skills you need for a successful event, but also organising the venue along with the hire and operation of the AV equipment and other hardware you'll need. Here's why these companies are so important.

Firstly, they can offer staff with a wide array of relevant and highly specialised skills. Event management can involve everything a whole range of diverse activities. These include finding the right venue, setting budgets and financial management, registering delegates arriving at the event, and designing a web site to promote the event and managing online booking. But that's not all.

It can involve session, speaker and exhibition management. This can involve working with the speakers and presenters to ensure they have everything they need to do a first class job including rehearsal time and on site presentation support.

The fact is, it needs trained professionals to see a project through from the initial planning and preparation to onsite support and maintenance during the event, and then provide post-event feedback and evaluation.

Other than management you need the right hardware and people qualified to use it effectively, and an event management firm can provide both the production equipment and the AV installation and AV support it needs.

It takes a versatile firm to handle all of the multifaceted tasks required which can include the production of a DVD video of an event, the development of PowerPoint presentations for a seminar or product launch, and the stage backdrop and lighting design and production. Live event production design is also something best handled by a professional firm. This can include stage design and the provision of lecterns as well as the custom building of sets. You'll need to find a firm with not only experience and expertise and equipment, but also the facilities to build sets. And you also need this to be competitively priced and available when you need it.

Considering the range of task required and the diversity of the type of event from conferences to more individual events such as religious festivals, it's easy to see why event management requires mastery of a diverse range of skills and technologies including theatre, sound, lighting, rigging, and AV production. And it takes an assured professional touch to handle things when they go wrong; and the unexpected always occurs.

Consider the type of staff you need to support an event such as a conference.

Firstly you need people with a rare combination of management, technical and communication skills to conceptualise and bring to fruition a major project such as a sales conference. These key players need a strong background in everything from project management to film and TV production, and theatre lighting.

Then you need support staff with a rare range of qualifications including electrical skills to set up the equipment, qualified to work at heights in order to set up stages and lighting, certified in the use of lighting and able to use an array of hand operated power tools to mention but a few. Other than these mechanical skills they need to be able to understand how effective communication takes place.

And after the big day is over and your want to know how it really went, audio visual companies can provide a detailed report using post-event feedback and evaluation services. Other than taking care of your special events, they can carry out AV installation of anything from an LCD projector to a multi site training system in your boardrooms, training rooms in any type of organisation from a multinational corporation to a house of worship or a hospital.

When you put your event management into the hands of professionals, you can just focus on the event itself, leaving all the finicky technical and organisational details to the AV firm to worry about. So the next time you're looking to hold an event that demands planning and organisation, look online to find out the details of a complete event management services provider who can take care of everything and make your event the success it deserves to be.