EU Referendum- How Brexit Impacts Us
Being part of the EU was a great thing for us. We deliver a number of events throughout Europe with us already working at 4 European events this year in Cannes, Prague, Paris and Frankfurt. There were worries for small business owners that if the UK voted to leave the EU, SME’s like ourselves could be at a disadvantage because our work would become more time-consuming and more expensive for us to conduct sales. Cost implications could now also affect our competitiveness with some local European AV companies.
Other than distance, it has always been relatively straightforward for us to work within the EU. Providing audio visual equipment for a conference in Paris is no different to working in a UK conference room. Working out of the EU however is a completely different story. We recently provided AV production and technical support at a European Awards Ceremony in Geneva. Even though this was fantastic for us, additional logistics and pre-event planning had to be taken into consideration. Working outside of the EU required us to apply for a carnet; an importation document that allowed us to bring all of our audio visual equipment into the country. This was extremely time consuming for us to prepare and quite costly.
Even the crazy guys of ‘Top Gear’ agreed with our reasons to vote remain!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPz179E7rhA
However, it isn’t all doom and gloom for us that Britain decided to exit the EU. Now that the UK is no longer part of the union, local crews are very likely to increase their prices to British companies looking to hold a European event in their country. Comparing the cost of a carnet document to the increased prices with a local crew, using a UK AV company will continue to be cheaper than using a local crew in most EU countries! Later this year we are working in Madrid and The Netherlands purely for this reason. Obviously cost is an extremely important factor in events, but by using a British AV crew like us, you would also benefit with the peace of mind in our work ethic, trustworthiness and would avoid having to tackle any awkward language barriers you may have with a local crew.
We are an audio visual company providing full AV support and conference production across the UK and Europe.
www.istead.co.uk
