5 Reasons Why Audience Response Rental Prices Differ So Much
There are many companies offering audience response rentals, so how will you know whether you’re getting a good deal or not? The cost of renting audience response systems for live audience polling depends on a few key variables. We’ve got the lowdown on what to look out for when comparing prices from suppliers.
Keypad Shipping
Event planners who prefer delegates use ARS keypads will need to be prepared to pay shipping costs. While many suppliers pride themselves on offering low keypad shipping costs, this is impossible to verify before providing keypad rental specifications. Audience response keypads come in a wide range of sizes and weights, complicating shipping prices. The larger the event, the higher your associated keypad shipping costs.
When gathering quotes from suppliers, request keypad shipping costs listed as a separate line item to ensure it doesn’t appear later as an add-on expense. To eliminate keypad shipping costs altogether, you can alternatively opt to use a mobile audience response system. Going this route, audience members use their smartphones or tablets to engage in live audience polling sessions. This has become an increasingly popular choice for meeting and event planners.
Labor
Planners who choose fully managed servicing for their audience response rental will certainly need to keep a close eye on labor costs. The number of on-site technicians required to manage audience response system deployments vary by supplier.
To save on labor costs, sessions with live audience polling can be staged so that they don’t occur concurrently. This will lessen the amount of technicians needed to manage your audience response system on the day(s) of the event. Rather than needing multiple technicians for simultaneous sessions, a single technician can manage sessions occurring consecutively.
Meeting Duration
This may seem like a no brainer, but the length of your event is a major factor affecting cost for audience response rentals. If hosting a multi-day event and managing a tight budget, you can incorporate live audience polling at the start or closing day of your event.
If this isn’t enough to bring audience response rental costs in line with your budget, then mobile audience response systems should be considered. This will eliminate both shipping and labor costs associated with audience response rentals of keypads.
Travel costs
Audience response rentals with fully managed servicing include on-site support from at least one experienced Audience Response Technician in charge of managing the setup and smooth running of your audience response system during and the day before the event at rehearsal.
To ensure you’re given a fair upfront quote, be specific with your event dates and location of your event. This will allow audience response suppliers to provide you with an accurate cost projection.
Feature utilization
In some instances, providers charge extra for access to special software features. While more competitive suppliers include the use of advanced features in their pricing, there are others that charge additional for access to software features deemed as ‘special’. When requesting quotes from audience response rental suppliers provide as much detail as you can on the type of live audience polling questions you’ll want to ask and reporting features that you’ll be needing. This will protect you from any surprise add-on costs later in the buying process.
