Meeting Tomorrow: Audio Visual and Technology to Make Your Event Shine [AV Review]

is a full-service AV and technology rental company, operating throughout the whole of the United States. Here is our review.

Meeting Tomorrow: What Is It?

Meeting Tomorrow provide audio visual production across 100% of the US and have one of the largest inventories of laptops and tablets available for hire. The company specializes in conferences, sales and marketing events, trade shows, pharmaceutical meetings, webcast productions, and any events that require large quantities of Laptop or iPad rentals, such as training days.

Their founder, Mark Aistrope, started out in 2003, with the aim of providing the “Netflix for projectors”. Initially with 15 projectors and a website that allowed him to ship back and forth across the country, he recruited a network of technicians to provide professional set up and assistance nationwide. Since then, Meeting Tomorrow has grown into a full-service AV and event technology supplier with a distribution warehouse stocking the latest presentation equipment; everything from iPads to video walls, and stages to charging stations.

The headquarters are in Chicago, with a growing team of over 65 people. Meeting Tomorrow will tell you they’ve got “Silicon Valley spirit and a Midwestern work ethic” and the company has been listed on the Inc. 500/5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies for three years in a row.

This is a new type of review on EventMB, reviewing AV suppliers. Let’s delve a little deeper into what Meeting Tomorrow can offer.

The Main Categories of Features Are:

Full-service AV and Technology Partner Nationwide audio visual production across the whole of the USA with on-site execution.

Technology Rental Laptop and tablet rental including the latest models and generations.

Webcasting and Hybrid Event Services End-to-end solutions for webcast events to ensure high quality live streaming.

Review

Meeting Tomorrow has a network of technicians and equipment throughout the country, so they can help customers for all of their events. Event planners can be sure they will get the same equipment, service experience, and pricing no matter where their event is taking place. They get allocated to a single, main point of contact, who knows their expectations and preferences, and applies learnings and takeaways from one location to the next.

The Meeting Tomorrow roots lie in Audio Visual, but over the years they recognized the evolving needs of event planners and expanded their offering accordingly. In addition to handling the AV, they provide large quantities of laptops, iPads, and other devices, and displays including video walls, touchscreens, and other monitors.

Service

If you contact Meeting Tomorrow by phone, email or web enquiry their Account Executives are the initial point of contact to help customers scope out their events, find solutions that are within budget, and to share event technology ideas.

After booking, the Meeting Tomorrow Event Managers take over the details and updates and make all necessary contingency plans. For larger events they will travel on-site in person. They always follow up after the event too, to share ideas for improvement on the next order.

The Warehouse team prepares the equipment for every order that goes out, including quality control checks to make sure that all content and customization is perfect.

The Event Support team is available 24/7 to support onsite additions, solve problems, and make sure everyone involved is taken care of. They track every shipment and technician to make sure everything and everyone shows up on time.

Audio Visual

Meeting Tomorrow offer staging, sound, lighting, projectors, screens, drapes, stage sets, podiums and everything you would expect from an AV partner. They do draw the line at furniture hire and plants, which are outside of their standard inventory and which an event planner can easily source elsewhere.

They can provide a full service, which includes setup, teardown, and any number of onsite techs required for the show. Meeting Tomorrow employ hundreds of AV technicians throughout the country from Technical Directors, to audio and video engineers, computer networking techs, video wall specialists, and camera operators.

Tablet Rentals

Meeting Tomorrow offer the latest models and generally hold 3 different generations of tablets in case a client has a specific preference and also to cater for different budget price points. Tablet devices are often available in a choice of color, as well as WiFi or data connected.

Event Planners can specify custom content in advance such as branding, settings, apps, text documents, PDFs, pictures, videos, etc and these can be pre-loaded onto all devices so they are ready to use from the minute you receive them.

Laptop Rental

Meeting Tomorrow has thousands of laptops available, including Lenovo, Dell, HP and Mac. Any version of Microsoft Windows can be installed on PC laptops (Windows 7 is standard). Computer accessories such as wireless routers, aircards, and technology locks are also available.

The laptop rental machines can be customized before distribution to be ready to use as soon as they are unpacked. This includes wallpapers/backgrounds, WiFi credentials, software installation, security settings, hard drive encryption and multiple user accounts. Desktops can be arranged in a specific way or specific websites or navigation away from your website can be blocked. Text documents, PDFs, pictures, videos and more can be preloaded to apply the same functionality on your devices. Meeting Tomorrow will even set up default email addresses or user settings on each machine, across any number of laptops.

Security

All equipment is updated to the latest updates and versions before shipping – meaning there is no need to do updates or security patches on site. Likewise, all data is wiped and machines are reset once they are delivered back to the warehouse. For Government and high-security clients that require deeper dives Meeting Tomorrow can erase hard drives overnight and supply the relevant Department of Defence paperwork to ensure full compliance.

Creative Solutions

Meeting Tomorrow offer a number of creative solutions and products to help their clients generate potential sponsorship revenues, increase engagement and branding opportunities at the event. As well as charging stations, social media walls, interactive touch screen kiosks and giant smartphone displays the iPad Jeopardy Wall stood out and looked like a lot of fun!

Price Savings

The Meeting Tomorrow specialty is supporting customers with multiple events, happening throughout the country, so they are able to offer quantity discounts on the equipment. If an event planner worked with a different supplier in each city they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of consistent rates, quality and the massive time saving of having a single point of contact.

Often, for meetings at hotels, the in-house AV provider charges inflated prices to cover the large commission they have to pay to the venue. When eventprofs bring in their own AV company, such as Meeting Tomorrow, this leads to significant savings and often more modern technology too.

Features

Full-service AV and Technology Partner

• Nationwide audio visual production across the whole of the USA
• Project management of your event
• Full service on-site execution
• 100’s of AV technicians throughout the country – standard AV techs, computer networking techs, Technical Directors, A1 techs, V1 techs, video wall specialists, and camera operators
• Flat rate pricing – same cost anywhere in the United States
• Projectors and screens
• Sound systems (speakers and mics)
• LCD monitors
• Staging
• Lighting
• Video cameras
• Video walls
• Digital signage and monitors
• Touch screen monitors and interactive kiosks
• Interactive game show wall

Technology Rental

• Fast deployment
• Delivery fees standard across the US
• Large inventories
• Latest models and generations
• WiFi only and 4G Data Connectivity models
• Daily, weekly and monthly rentals
• Laptop and MacBook rental
• Ipad rental
• iPhones and Android phones
• On-site services – charging, distribution and instructions
• Internet and networking
• Social media photo booths
• Badge printers
• Charging stations

Webcasting and Hybrid Event Services

• End-to-end solutions for webcast events: registration management, webcast administration, event production, presenter support, remote AV and private satellite broadcasting services
• High quality live streaming
• Interactive web meeting platform MeetingConnect™
• Integrate with popular webcasting platforms such as Adobe Connect, LiveStream, YouTube Live, and others
• Remote support
• On-site technical support and broadcasting
• Hybrid events
• Multi-location support
• Internet bandwidth site surveys

Who Is It For?

Meeting Tomorrow work exclusively with meeting planners (corporate in-house and meeting planning companies), agencies, associations, event marketers, organizations and businesses – anyone involved in sourcing technology rentals for their business. They are exclusively B2B and do not provide rentals to individuals for personal use.

If you are planning a large conference or event, particularly one that repeats across American cities it could be the perfect fit for Meeting Tomorrow.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• AV and event technology, however you need it – full service or rental only
• Products available for generating revenue and branding your event better
• US wide coverage

Cons

• Not available outside of the US
• Not a good fit for small scale, one-off events
• Insurance or damage waiver required in case of loss or damage

Pricing and Plans

The shipping costs are standard throughout the whole of the US, so you can be confident that whatever the location you pay the same cost. You only pay for the rental duration – you are not charged for the shipping time.

In Conclusion

Meeting Tomorrow is perfectly positioned for any event that has a decent requirement for audio visual or technology rental equipment. If you are running a small, isolated event without much specialization they will be the first to advise you that it will be best to coordinate that directly with the venue or small, local AV company. If however you are looking for a partner that you can trust, creative solutions and a consistent set up across multiple locations, then you should contact Meeting Tomorrow for a quotation.

Disclaimer: Reviews are paid for placements. While Event Manager Blog receives a fee to extensively look at the tool and review it in detail, the content of the review is independent and by no means influenced by the company. If you have any questions please use the contact us section.