The person who makes sure conferences, broadcasts, and live events actually sound and look right — running cables, mixing audio, cuing lights, troubleshooting on the fly. The work tends to involve early call times, late strikes, and quiet pressure when something glitches mid-show.
Most days start with load-in and end with strike — running cables, setting microphones, testing levels, balancing speaker zones. You're often working in hotel ballrooms, corporate AV booths, houses of worship, or broadcast studios, and the rhythm shifts with the venue. The job tends to peak when the room fills and you have to disappear into the booth — invisible if everything works, very visible if it doesn't.
What's harder than people expect is the sheer variability in gear and the on-the-fly troubleshooting when a feed drops or a wireless mic catches interference. At many companies, you'll cycle between owned kit and rented systems, sometimes meeting a board for the first time the morning of the event. Travel and odd hours — early calls, weekend events, conference seasons — shape the year more than salary does.
People who tend to thrive here are calm under pressure, hands-on with cables and signal flow, and quietly proud of an invisible job done well. If you need predictable hours, the event circuit can wear on you. If you like solving problems in real time and seeing rooms come together, the work has steady satisfaction.
Where this role sits in the broader career landscape — and where it can take you.
Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Arts & Media roles →The person who makes sure conferences, broadcasts, and live events actually sound and look right — running cables, mixing audio, cuing lights, troubleshooting on the fly. The work tends to involve early call times, late strikes, and quiet pressure when something glitches mid-show.
Median pay for an Audio Video Technician is about $55K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $35K to $98K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Monitoring, Operations Monitoring, Critical Thinking, Reading Comprehension, and Complex Problem Solving.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 3.3% through 2034, with roughly 70,080 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Television Audio Engineer, Radio Station Audio Engineer, and Audio Video Engineer.
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