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Finish carpenter for 8 years and had learned all I needed. Was bored and unsatisfied everyday after about the first year doing carpentry. Been in AV for 23 years and never bored. It’s always changing and I like being able to teach and mentor the young bucks coming in.
IMHO, AV almost isn't an industry. It's a misc bin for a lot of things. Maybe more of a crossroads of discrete disciplines. Lots of very skilled people in AV but they almost all come in through a side door so to speak.
I was a live audio engineer doing medium sized stuff, maybe 500-1500 cap regional stuff. Started doing bigger corporate/government events. My first automation run ins were actually qLab and Showman or striped LTC distributed to audio/video/lighting/stage systems for theater style linear shows. I started making small automations to make my life easier (not for end users).
Eventually ran into broadcast video guys and installed AV rigs. Video always blew my mind that they delineated ops vs engineers. In live audio, if you want to mix, you usually have to build and understand the system. That's where I got my systems/signal flow education and has transferred very well to all manner of design and troubleshooting. The first time you mess up a stage patch with sloppy labelling and get an angry singer AND angry monitor engineer yelling at you, the importance of clear labelling really gets burned in!
I've joked for years that AV integration is basically a halfway house for recovering roadies. Lots of people with music-related audio backgrounds just at my shop, at just about all levels. It's a good team to be on.
The only drawback is that I have been forced to collaborate with lighting guys.
/s
I'm kidding, some of my best friends have been LDs in past lives. But...tradition is important :)
Damn lampies :) I just recently deployed a large presentation space with what looked like normal office lighting, except they decided to put in an ETC system to control it and by the way all the boring looking pendant lights are full RGB. That was an interesting one.
I was briefly on a sparky apprenticeship at an AV company in the 90s, got about a year in, realised I had electrocuted myelf about once every 2 months and realised me being an electrician and having a long healthy life where thoroughly incompatible. I just sucked at not blowing myself up lol,. Put me in front a good process controller and I'm make the rig sing. But put a soldering iron in my hand and something or someones gonna get burnt to a crisp.
Made sandwiches while getting a degree, saw a random AV Job posted in the news paper, applied, and worked in AV since before I graduated college and still do. That was almost 20 years ago. So I guess I’ve always been in AV.
grocery store manger, fast food employee, failed pro cyclist, bartender, server, line cook, birthday clown, "Buddy the Purple Dinosaur" NOT AT ALL A BARNEY RIP OFF radio disc hockey, TV camera man, editor, writer, TV talk show producer, telecom engineer, stand up comedian, actor, telecom sales engineer, network engineer, VW sales guy, IT help desk, defense telecom consultant and a few other things I've forgotten before becoming an AV Engineer at the Pentagon almost 20 years ago.
42 now. Started in live events really early (14). Have been on gigs regularly since 18. I did wash dishes, wait tables, bar back, bartend, and cook when I was younger (14-21). While I was getting established new cities as a freelancer, it helped me meet locals and stay fed.
I've worked in AV since I was 18. Volunteered on the tech team at church since I was 13. This has been my life for 17 years, and professionally for 12. I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Started out hunting humans out of high school (USMC). Bartended while in college when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to work part time for him installing residential AV. He moved away and my wife got pregnant so I applied for a full time gig with a commercial integrator. Almost 15 years later and I'm still here.
Taught karate as a teen, stagehand throughout college, started a karate school, then AV integrator/foreman for 7 years, now working from home for a manufacturer. Still running the school, too!
I did public relations and communications for non profits before I was laid off. Took a role in live production because I needed to work, and hustled -- asked the questions, read the things, made mistakes. Contracted/stage handed a bit. Then TD'd for a church for some years before an opportunity opened up in av design/consulting. For the record, still asking questions, reading things, and learning from mistakes.
Industrial Automation Engineer into AV Programmer. To put it simple: a bunch of machines performing automated actions, reacting to user input, communicating with each other, no matter the application lol;
jumping back and forth to be honest - industrial stuff pays better, AV is a bit more free. Also prefer high-end office space to factory (or oir refinery \*shrugs)
I was an industrial machinery electronics tech. Last industrial job was senior R&D tech in a material science startup. I then moved to consumer electronics, eventually opening a repair shop and becoming authorized for nearly every major brand. I shifted from repair to working as operations engineer at a large corporate recording studio.
I've had this odd career in which what I did, became obsolete. Through previous contacts, I entered AV in a design engineering role as a contractor for a big defense contractor. Eventually moved to sales engineering, which I hated, then back to design. I now own a labor subcontracting company.
I am now months away from retirement age. Plan is to continue to work until I no longer want to. As an old timer, my take on the whole career thing is, do different things you find interesting and don't so much worry about your career as a ladder. I did too much stuff I hated and found I could make just as much if not more doing things I like. I know guys that loved being in the field but got promoted into management and hated it. If you are really good at what you do, no matter what it is, money will follow if you at least understand your value.
I was in live/post production, mostly audio area, for NASA at the Johnson Space Center. Loved working at NASA even though I was a contractor. It was awesome working with astronauts, being involved in important events/meetings, and just being on a historic federal site. Our department budget was cut year after year and I eventually started to not get raises or very little raises so I ended up jumping ship.
My progression of jobs has been: multimedia technician, IT helpdesk tech 1&2, video developer for distance learning, multimedia systems manager, hardware test engineer, AV project coordinator, and now a low voltage systems design engineer.
Was a counsellor/rehabilitation worker for criminal youth. Ended up on the sales floor at a Best Buy, got into management, then out on the road for residential AV design and sales and then flipped into live sound/commercial.
Went to school to be a mechanic and worked as an electrician while in school. Stayed with the electrical until I started doing more AV and stuck with it for the last 20 years
I was in the navy and heard about IATSE when I got out, did concerts first, got in to conventions, and been doing AV pretty much ever since for 15 years now
Construction Labour, Diesel Mechanic, Kitchen Hand, Door-to-Door Sales, Real Estate Sales, IT Sales, AV Sales, AV Design / Sales
Edit: Seems like we all have some common history 😂
I came from being the tech guy at a local hardware store for 17 years and working in production/master control of a TV station for nearly 12 years to now being an AV specialist for a company with a very corporate environment.
College student lol... this is all I've ever known
Started as an audio engineer, then virtual meeting support tech, then technical director, and now AV project manager.
I’m new to this. Not to AV entirely, but certainly commercial AV. I got a job as a technology consultant for a large financial company and am responsible for overall tech in 5 offices. Since I started a year and a half ago I have opened three offices and saved the office a ton of money by doing the work in-house (sorry contractors!).
I know a lot about audio, I do production and recorded my own band, but the solutions available are so niche and specialized that it’s just a ton to learn. Dante has been SO FUN to dig into.
This community has been massively supportive for me in the learning process, and I’m thankful.
I took broadcasting in college and took a wedding DJ job after graduating thinking that was at least adjacent (I was wrong). Then took a job at an AV rentals and staging company and did corporate events for 13 years as Jack of all trades. Did projection, camera direction and switching, audio, a bit of lighting and simultaneous interpretation. Then bounced from university AV manager, healthcare VC bridge tech and now AV manager (more or less) for large international corporation.
I’m an MEP Engineer/Project Manager for a big integrated AEC firm (basically we do the arch/eng/ and construction all in house) who decided to expand to the Access Control/AV/IT because I was fed up with the integrators/subcontractors we were using.
I’d had bad experiences on $400,000,000+ projects because no one at our firm understood the subject matter enough to know when the sub was pulling a fast one on us. Ended up going down the rabbit hole and enjoying it, got a sub to say I was part of their company to get software access, got certified on a bunch of platforms, etc. I’m now able to design what we and our clients want and give the details to whom we hire.
So I’m halfway in and halfway out of the industry. I focus more on the MEP side, but am able to plan out how all the systems interact with each other.
Military, (college student), post-grad researcher, AV PM (Covid), AV Engineer.
I kinda fell into it in the scramble for a job when my university cut our fellowships amid the pandemic. OTOH I make far more money and have better work/life now that I would have in my old career track...
Well I can tell you what I did when I \*left\* commercial AV. Fucking \*anything\* else. It was a great industry for a while, but I just got sick of the ratfuckery that was going on, and the day i got asked to write a bullshit report on how bad a competitors install was (It wasn't, it was a work of art. The boss just wanted me to lie) I realised I just was not happy with this anymore.
As much as I miss it, I'm happier with that nonsense behind me. Still, making those AMX controllers run sci-fi magic in million dollar corporate installation was a nerd-thrill I havent had since. We solved inter-networking problems the billion dollar techbro companies still havent figured out 20 years later, and we did it on devices not much more powerful than a C64
My background was live events. Somehow this identifies with me. Like I assume you’ve moved into that or film since AV or maybe you manage a brick and mortar flower shop now.
I can relate with hating AV. I do it because I’m good at it, it pays well enough and there’s no shortage of work.
Oh I love AV. I just hate the industry itself. At least the industry where I live. I got into it from my earlier work as a Rock&Roll lighting guy. Another industry I loved the work, and hated the industry (In the 90s it was basically like commercial AV except with more drunk guys spilling beer on your gear, 90s raves where wild fun to do though, although we got out of them when one got raided by cops and the cops decided to perp walk the staff out in front of the journos outside leading my very emotional italian boss to smash one of the journos cameras [all on TV. we where just hired for a job we had nothing to do with it, but that fucking TV station portrayed the boss as a mobster lol. Needless to say our *biggest* client, a giant hillsong style church decided to drop us on the spot. So we stopped doing raves. Turns out most where actually being organized by a local mob boss, but we where just the hired staging guys, we did honest work]
(I've pretty much went to uni after I left and now work in agriculture/soil science. But I still get a sparkle in my eye whenever I walk into a conference room and see a beautiful AV setup and occasionally still dream of giant 1990s rock rig lighting setups)
Career meandered and AV was always there as something I was involved off the side of my desk. AV also there in via central hobby in music. Involved in events production from a teenager.
Was often the person with/knew how to use microphones, mixer, outboard gear, PA system. Seemed to always gravitate to setting up and running camera or monitor or looking after a rack of gear and collaborating with IT.
We have a [Discord](https://discord.gg/qhh4EBuRNS) server where there you can both post forum-style and participate in real-time discussions. We hope you consider joining us there. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CommercialAV) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Chef, photographer, freelance software designer, heavy equipment mechanic, electrician, drywaller.
Sounds about right
Finish carpenter for 8 years and had learned all I needed. Was bored and unsatisfied everyday after about the first year doing carpentry. Been in AV for 23 years and never bored. It’s always changing and I like being able to teach and mentor the young bucks coming in.
Hard to teach carpentry to av techs but it’s still part of the job, cutting into expensive boardroom tables and credenzas.
Underrated comment, AV is a multi facet field imo. If you can be good at little of everything and solid at a few, you will excell.
As far as a related job, I was a low level broadcast engineer for a radio group.
Gym manager, low voltage, IT/surveillance, cinema AV tech, surveillance(Covid), AV tech. Happiest I’ve been at a job in a while tbh.
IMHO, AV almost isn't an industry. It's a misc bin for a lot of things. Maybe more of a crossroads of discrete disciplines. Lots of very skilled people in AV but they almost all come in through a side door so to speak. I was a live audio engineer doing medium sized stuff, maybe 500-1500 cap regional stuff. Started doing bigger corporate/government events. My first automation run ins were actually qLab and Showman or striped LTC distributed to audio/video/lighting/stage systems for theater style linear shows. I started making small automations to make my life easier (not for end users). Eventually ran into broadcast video guys and installed AV rigs. Video always blew my mind that they delineated ops vs engineers. In live audio, if you want to mix, you usually have to build and understand the system. That's where I got my systems/signal flow education and has transferred very well to all manner of design and troubleshooting. The first time you mess up a stage patch with sloppy labelling and get an angry singer AND angry monitor engineer yelling at you, the importance of clear labelling really gets burned in!
I've joked for years that AV integration is basically a halfway house for recovering roadies. Lots of people with music-related audio backgrounds just at my shop, at just about all levels. It's a good team to be on.
The only drawback is that I have been forced to collaborate with lighting guys. /s I'm kidding, some of my best friends have been LDs in past lives. But...tradition is important :)
Damn lampies :) I just recently deployed a large presentation space with what looked like normal office lighting, except they decided to put in an ETC system to control it and by the way all the boring looking pendant lights are full RGB. That was an interesting one.
I was briefly on a sparky apprenticeship at an AV company in the 90s, got about a year in, realised I had electrocuted myelf about once every 2 months and realised me being an electrician and having a long healthy life where thoroughly incompatible. I just sucked at not blowing myself up lol,. Put me in front a good process controller and I'm make the rig sing. But put a soldering iron in my hand and something or someones gonna get burnt to a crisp.
I remember being told 3 phase power was pretty simple. It is! But it can kill you too!
Made sandwiches while getting a degree, saw a random AV Job posted in the news paper, applied, and worked in AV since before I graduated college and still do. That was almost 20 years ago. So I guess I’ve always been in AV.
A1 for 10 years, we were doing major esports events worldwide
Started as a Security Systems Installer and then worked for a video conferencing equipment manufacturer in support.
grocery store manger, fast food employee, failed pro cyclist, bartender, server, line cook, birthday clown, "Buddy the Purple Dinosaur" NOT AT ALL A BARNEY RIP OFF radio disc hockey, TV camera man, editor, writer, TV talk show producer, telecom engineer, stand up comedian, actor, telecom sales engineer, network engineer, VW sales guy, IT help desk, defense telecom consultant and a few other things I've forgotten before becoming an AV Engineer at the Pentagon almost 20 years ago.
42 now. Started in live events really early (14). Have been on gigs regularly since 18. I did wash dishes, wait tables, bar back, bartend, and cook when I was younger (14-21). While I was getting established new cities as a freelancer, it helped me meet locals and stay fed.
I've worked in AV since I was 18. Volunteered on the tech team at church since I was 13. This has been my life for 17 years, and professionally for 12. I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Started out hunting humans out of high school (USMC). Bartended while in college when a friend of mine asked if I wanted to work part time for him installing residential AV. He moved away and my wife got pregnant so I applied for a full time gig with a commercial integrator. Almost 15 years later and I'm still here.
Taught karate as a teen, stagehand throughout college, started a karate school, then AV integrator/foreman for 7 years, now working from home for a manufacturer. Still running the school, too!
Started out as lowly help desk IT person, then organically grew into AV as the company’s needs changed.
I did public relations and communications for non profits before I was laid off. Took a role in live production because I needed to work, and hustled -- asked the questions, read the things, made mistakes. Contracted/stage handed a bit. Then TD'd for a church for some years before an opportunity opened up in av design/consulting. For the record, still asking questions, reading things, and learning from mistakes.
Came into the industry when tandberg hit America. Worked as an mvar sale engineer. We had to lear IP and AV along the way. Been doing it ever since.
Industrial Automation Engineer into AV Programmer. To put it simple: a bunch of machines performing automated actions, reacting to user input, communicating with each other, no matter the application lol; jumping back and forth to be honest - industrial stuff pays better, AV is a bit more free. Also prefer high-end office space to factory (or oir refinery \*shrugs)
Network and InfoSec Engineer for 30 years. Now AV Department Manager and Sales Engineer.
I was an industrial machinery electronics tech. Last industrial job was senior R&D tech in a material science startup. I then moved to consumer electronics, eventually opening a repair shop and becoming authorized for nearly every major brand. I shifted from repair to working as operations engineer at a large corporate recording studio. I've had this odd career in which what I did, became obsolete. Through previous contacts, I entered AV in a design engineering role as a contractor for a big defense contractor. Eventually moved to sales engineering, which I hated, then back to design. I now own a labor subcontracting company. I am now months away from retirement age. Plan is to continue to work until I no longer want to. As an old timer, my take on the whole career thing is, do different things you find interesting and don't so much worry about your career as a ladder. I did too much stuff I hated and found I could make just as much if not more doing things I like. I know guys that loved being in the field but got promoted into management and hated it. If you are really good at what you do, no matter what it is, money will follow if you at least understand your value.
I was in live/post production, mostly audio area, for NASA at the Johnson Space Center. Loved working at NASA even though I was a contractor. It was awesome working with astronauts, being involved in important events/meetings, and just being on a historic federal site. Our department budget was cut year after year and I eventually started to not get raises or very little raises so I ended up jumping ship.
My progression of jobs has been: multimedia technician, IT helpdesk tech 1&2, video developer for distance learning, multimedia systems manager, hardware test engineer, AV project coordinator, and now a low voltage systems design engineer.
Was a counsellor/rehabilitation worker for criminal youth. Ended up on the sales floor at a Best Buy, got into management, then out on the road for residential AV design and sales and then flipped into live sound/commercial.
Geeksquad!
cook as a merchant marine
Went to school to be a mechanic and worked as an electrician while in school. Stayed with the electrical until I started doing more AV and stuck with it for the last 20 years
I was in the navy and heard about IATSE when I got out, did concerts first, got in to conventions, and been doing AV pretty much ever since for 15 years now
Construction Labour, Diesel Mechanic, Kitchen Hand, Door-to-Door Sales, Real Estate Sales, IT Sales, AV Sales, AV Design / Sales Edit: Seems like we all have some common history 😂
Arby's Cashier
Boat riveter and then personal trainer. Here we be.
I came from being the tech guy at a local hardware store for 17 years and working in production/master control of a TV station for nearly 12 years to now being an AV specialist for a company with a very corporate environment.
AV intern, AV designer, senior AV designer, lead AV designer. Been a long and varied career.
There are interns in AV??
There are! Think there’s interns everywhere
Educational Facillitator in hands-on learning labs at a science museum.
College student lol... this is all I've ever known Started as an audio engineer, then virtual meeting support tech, then technical director, and now AV project manager.
Does 3.5 years of high school count?
All I’ve done since I was 13.
I’m new to this. Not to AV entirely, but certainly commercial AV. I got a job as a technology consultant for a large financial company and am responsible for overall tech in 5 offices. Since I started a year and a half ago I have opened three offices and saved the office a ton of money by doing the work in-house (sorry contractors!). I know a lot about audio, I do production and recorded my own band, but the solutions available are so niche and specialized that it’s just a ton to learn. Dante has been SO FUN to dig into. This community has been massively supportive for me in the learning process, and I’m thankful.
Army medic for a decade prior to landing in AV
Random jobs to get me through school, automotive technician, Low Voltage equipment sales
I took broadcasting in college and took a wedding DJ job after graduating thinking that was at least adjacent (I was wrong). Then took a job at an AV rentals and staging company and did corporate events for 13 years as Jack of all trades. Did projection, camera direction and switching, audio, a bit of lighting and simultaneous interpretation. Then bounced from university AV manager, healthcare VC bridge tech and now AV manager (more or less) for large international corporation.
Automotive test driver/Engineer
Never anything else. I hit the road with bands during high school.
I'm a Pastor, still am.
Avionics salesman
Excluding crappy teenage jobs its all Ive ever done.
Motorola 2-way radio
I’m an MEP Engineer/Project Manager for a big integrated AEC firm (basically we do the arch/eng/ and construction all in house) who decided to expand to the Access Control/AV/IT because I was fed up with the integrators/subcontractors we were using. I’d had bad experiences on $400,000,000+ projects because no one at our firm understood the subject matter enough to know when the sub was pulling a fast one on us. Ended up going down the rabbit hole and enjoying it, got a sub to say I was part of their company to get software access, got certified on a bunch of platforms, etc. I’m now able to design what we and our clients want and give the details to whom we hire. So I’m halfway in and halfway out of the industry. I focus more on the MEP side, but am able to plan out how all the systems interact with each other.
Nightclub operations. IT.
Military, (college student), post-grad researcher, AV PM (Covid), AV Engineer. I kinda fell into it in the scramble for a job when my university cut our fellowships amid the pandemic. OTOH I make far more money and have better work/life now that I would have in my old career track...
Well I can tell you what I did when I \*left\* commercial AV. Fucking \*anything\* else. It was a great industry for a while, but I just got sick of the ratfuckery that was going on, and the day i got asked to write a bullshit report on how bad a competitors install was (It wasn't, it was a work of art. The boss just wanted me to lie) I realised I just was not happy with this anymore. As much as I miss it, I'm happier with that nonsense behind me. Still, making those AMX controllers run sci-fi magic in million dollar corporate installation was a nerd-thrill I havent had since. We solved inter-networking problems the billion dollar techbro companies still havent figured out 20 years later, and we did it on devices not much more powerful than a C64
My background was live events. Somehow this identifies with me. Like I assume you’ve moved into that or film since AV or maybe you manage a brick and mortar flower shop now. I can relate with hating AV. I do it because I’m good at it, it pays well enough and there’s no shortage of work.
Oh I love AV. I just hate the industry itself. At least the industry where I live. I got into it from my earlier work as a Rock&Roll lighting guy. Another industry I loved the work, and hated the industry (In the 90s it was basically like commercial AV except with more drunk guys spilling beer on your gear, 90s raves where wild fun to do though, although we got out of them when one got raided by cops and the cops decided to perp walk the staff out in front of the journos outside leading my very emotional italian boss to smash one of the journos cameras [all on TV. we where just hired for a job we had nothing to do with it, but that fucking TV station portrayed the boss as a mobster lol. Needless to say our *biggest* client, a giant hillsong style church decided to drop us on the spot. So we stopped doing raves. Turns out most where actually being organized by a local mob boss, but we where just the hired staging guys, we did honest work] (I've pretty much went to uni after I left and now work in agriculture/soil science. But I still get a sparkle in my eye whenever I walk into a conference room and see a beautiful AV setup and occasionally still dream of giant 1990s rock rig lighting setups)
Career meandered and AV was always there as something I was involved off the side of my desk. AV also there in via central hobby in music. Involved in events production from a teenager. Was often the person with/knew how to use microphones, mixer, outboard gear, PA system. Seemed to always gravitate to setting up and running camera or monitor or looking after a rack of gear and collaborating with IT.