Why AV Consultants Have to Compromise With Other Trades

Why "the AV needs to go in" is the wrong way to win an argument on site.

I had Simone Di Francescangelo on the podcast last week. He's spent 20 years in AV across the UK and Australia, moving between system integration and consultancy multiple times over his career. I asked him what actually changes when you go from one side to the other, and his answer wasn't about technical skill at all.

As an integrator, Simone said, your job is your part of the project. As a consultant, there's a lot more to juggle: mechanical services, lighting, fire, hydraulics, all the other trades a building needs to function. The hard part to hear? He was blunt that those other services are often more important than AV, especially air conditioning, particularly in Queensland, in a building where you can't just open a window. Sometimes the AV needs to fit in where it can. Air con and fire compliance don't have that luxury.

The mistake he's seen most often, both here in Australia and in the UK, is AV people treating their part as the most important part, then creating friction that didn't need to exist. Everyone thinks their piece is the priority, Simone said, but a consultant has to be more willing to compromise than the other trades, not less. That's the skill shift moving from integrator to consultant: less "the AV needs to go in," more sitting at the table with mechanical, electrical and fire, and working out where AV genuinely fits around what the building actually needs to do.

It's a mindset shift, but it's the difference between an AV contractor that the main contractors tolerate and one they actually want back on the next job. Being easy to coordinate with, being the trade that solves problems instead of creating them, isn't a soft skill. It's a genuine reason a builder chooses to bring the same consultant back project after project.

That's just one part of a longer conversation. You can listen to the full episode with Simone Di Francescangelo for more on the differences between working in the UK and Australia, and 20 years of moving between integration and consultancy.