The 2026 Event Planner's Technical Checklist

Stop Guessing. Start Asking the Right Questions.

Every event planner has been there: you've booked a gorgeous venue, confirmed the caterer, finalized the guest list—and then two weeks before the event, you discover the ballroom only has four 20-amp circuits, the "high-speed internet" tops out at 15 Mbps, and the ceiling is too low for your lighting designer to hang anything meaningful.

These aren't edge cases. They're the most common technical surprises we see after 20+ years of producing events across New England. Venues are in the business of selling their space, not disclosing its limitations. That's not malicious—it's just not their expertise. But it becomes your problem on event day.

We built this checklist so you never get blindsided again. These are the 15 questions we ask on every single site visit, distilled into a practical, printable guide you can bring to your next venue walkthrough.

What's Inside the Checklist

• Power Requirements & Circuit Capacity

  Most venues quote total amperage, but what matters is how it's distributed. A 200-amp service means nothing if the ballroom shares a single 20-amp circuit with the kitchen's walk-in cooler. You'll learn exactly what to ask about dedicated circuits, breaker panel access, and whether you need to budget for supplemental power distribution.

• Internet Bandwidth for Live Streaming

  Your venue says they have WiFi. Great. But "WiFi" and "production-grade internet capable of sustaining a 1080p live stream for three hours" are very different things. We cover the minimum upload speeds you actually need, why you should always request a hardwired ethernet connection, and the critical difference between shared guest WiFi and a dedicated production network.

• Ceiling Height & Rigging Points

  Lighting design lives or dies by what's above your head. Low ceilings limit fixture options and create hot spots. High ceilings without rigging points mean expensive truss builds. We'll show you how to measure effective trim height, identify structural rigging points versus decorative beams, and what ceiling heights mean for your lighting and projection budget.

• Venue's Existing AV Equipment (And Why You Shouldn't Rely on It)

  Many venues advertise "built-in AV" as a selling point. In our experience, this usually means a projector from 2014 with a burned lamp, a pair of ceiling speakers designed for background music, and a rats' nest of unlabeled cables behind a podium. We explain what questions to ask, how to evaluate in-house equipment honestly, and when it's worth using versus replacing entirely.

• Load-In Access & Elevator Dimensions

  Your AV company needs to move hundreds of pounds of equipment into your event space. If the freight elevator is 4 feet wide and the loading dock is shared with three other vendors on the same morning, that's a problem that adds hours and labor costs. The checklist covers dock scheduling, elevator dimensions, hallway clearances, and the questions that prevent load-in day disasters.

• Acoustic Treatment & Room Reflections

  A beautiful marble floor and soaring stone walls look incredible in photos—and create an acoustic nightmare for speeches and music. Hard, parallel surfaces cause flutter echo and excessive reverb that no amount of EQ can fix after the fact. We cover how to do a simple clap test during your site visit, what room materials mean for sound quality, and when to budget for acoustic treatment.

Plus 9 More Critical Topics

The full checklist also covers ambient noise levels (HVAC systems, street noise, and adjacent event spaces that bleed sound into your room), backup power and generator access for mission-critical events, lighting control and dimming capability so your lighting designer can actually dim the house lights, and cable run distances that affect signal quality over long runs.

For outdoor events, we address weather contingency planning—not just "do you have a rain plan?" but the specific technical implications of moving an entire production indoors on short notice. We cover vendor coordination timelines that prevent the all-too-common scenario of your florist, caterer, and AV team all trying to set up in the same room at the same time.

The checklist also tackles rehearsal and sound check scheduling (hint: if your venue only gives you 30 minutes before doors, that's not enough), guest WiFi versus production network separation to prevent 200 phones from crashing your live stream, and post-event load-out time restrictions that can turn a smooth strike into a frantic midnight scramble.

Every item includes the specific questions to ask, red flags to watch for, and practical solutions when the answer isn't what you hoped. This is the same due diligence process our production team follows on every project—now available as a free resource for planners who want to get it right the first time.