Grant Sound & Lighting provides corporate event production in Anaheim, covering audio, lighting, video, staging and the crew who operate them. We have produced general sessions and break-out rooms at the Anaheim Convention Center and worked the NAMM show in the same building, and we have been producing live events for over thirty years.
Event production at the Anaheim Convention Center
Anaheim events usually mean the convention center, and convention work is its own discipline rather than a bigger version of a hotel meeting.
We produced general sessions and break-out rooms at the Anaheim Convention Center for a medical convention. The same content ran across several rooms at once, and every room needed its own audio, its own screens and its own technician. Nothing about that setup scales down from one big system.
The building also hosts the NAMM show, which we have worked and attended. An 85,000-person trade floor is one of the noisiest rooms in the industry, and it makes a useful benchmark. Audio that stays intelligible there will hold up anywhere in Orange County. Exhibit floors are a service in their own right, and our trade show work covers booth audio, demo stages and the coverage a crowded hall needs.
The venues, and what each one asks for
The Anaheim Convention Center is the largest on the West Coast at roughly 1.8 million square feet, including 1,213,000 square feet of exhibit space, 238,000 square feet of meeting space, 99 meeting rooms and two ballrooms of 100,000 square feet each. There are over 18,000 hotel rooms within a mile of it.
That scale is the reason Anaheim events are planned differently. Ninety-nine meeting rooms is not a bigger version of three; it is a scheduling problem with an audio system attached.
The Hilton Anaheim sits next door with 1,572 rooms and around 140,000 square feet of meeting space. The Anaheim Marriott, also adjacent, has 1,030 rooms and roughly 100,000 square feet, including the Platinum Ballroom at 25,410 square feet seating up to 3,585. The Westin Anaheim Resort adds 618 rooms and over 50,000 square feet, and the Anaheim Majestic Garden Hotel offers around 20,000 square feet for smaller programs.
Programs frequently spread across the convention center and one or two of those hotels. That is a crew and comms problem before it is an equipment problem, because a technical fault in a break-out at the Marriott cannot be fixed by someone standing in the convention center. Our audio visual crews are scheduled per room for exactly that reason.
What convention halls demand that ballrooms do not
Scale changes the method. A hall that size needs distributed sound rather than one system at the front, because a single stack cannot reach the back row without deafening the first ten.
Load-in is scheduled and shared. You get a window between the previous exhibitor and yours, and it does not move for anybody. We plan the build backwards from load-out rather than forwards from doors, and we build the night before wherever the venue allows it, so problems surface in rehearsal instead of during a keynote.
Ceiling heights and rigging points vary between halls in the same building. Anything flown needs confirmed points and qualified riggers, and that is a site-visit question rather than a day-of question. Finding out on the morning that a hall has no usable rigging is how a show loses its opening session.
Multi-room events and why crew count decides the quote
A convention with parallel sessions needs one technician in each active room plus a lead coordinating across all of them. Rooms running back to back need enough crew to reset one while another is live.
Understaffing is the most common reason a convention falls behind, and it almost always shows up in the afternoon rather than the morning. The first session runs fine because everyone is fresh and the room was built overnight. The fourth turnaround is where a thin crew loses twenty minutes it never gets back.
Crew is usually the largest single line on a convention quote. Equipment is the visible part; people are the expensive part, and they are what you are actually buying. That is why convention AV is scoped per room rather than as one number for the building.
What corporate AV costs in Anaheim
Corporate AV is quoted per room and per day rather than from a rate card, and published figures vary widely because they cover very different scopes.
Providers ranking for this question put standard conference audio at $5,000 to $10,000. For a 300-person three-day conference, published breakdowns run roughly $5,000 to $15,000 each for audio and video, $3,000 to $10,000 for lighting, and $10,000 to $25,000 for labor. A full branded general session in a single room is quoted from about $25,000 upward.
Anaheim sits toward the upper end for multi-room events, because room count drives crew and crew drives the number. We quote equipment, crew, transport and load-in separately so you can see which of those is moving your total, and cut the right one if you need to.
Who else ranks for this, and what we have that they do not
Page one for Anaheim event production is mostly venue directories and hotels marketing their own ballrooms. A directory can tell you a room’s square footage. It cannot tell you whether the rigging points will carry your truss.
What we bring that a directory listing and a rental catalogue do not is permanent installation experience. We specified and installed the Atmos surround system at the Dolby Theatre and the Meyer Sound system at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, both still in service. Living with a system for years changes how you spec one for a night, and it is why our event designs tend to be conservative rather than optimistic.
Serving Orange County from Ventura
We are based in Ventura and travel to Anaheim regularly. Travel and crew lodging appear as their own lines on a quote rather than being folded into equipment costs, so the distance is visible rather than buried.
For a single-room meeting an Orange County supplier will often be cheaper, and we will say so. Where we earn the travel is a multi-room convention where the same crew who designed the system are the ones running it. Nearby we also cover event production in Newport Beach. Further south we also cover San Diego conferences. The rest of what we do is on the event production services page.
What clients say
| “They have always done thorough walkthroughs beforehand, answering all of our questions and ensuring our vision and requests are met. Their event execution has always been flawless and without issues.” | Isabelle Piacentini, Google |
| “Their attention to detail and the ease of the load in and load out process was the best. I would highly recommend using them for all your sound and lighting needs for an event.” | Tania Henry, Google |
| “They were able to pivot when we had last-minute changes and unplanned weather. They took our company’s vision for this event to the next level with their creative and technical expertise.” | Taylor Wilson, Google |
About the team
Grant Sound & Lighting is co-owned by Margaux Macgregor, who grew up in live event production and now leads client strategy and experiential event work for the company. You can find her on LinkedIn.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you work at the Anaheim Convention Center?
Yes, we work at the Anaheim Convention Center. We produced a medical convention there across general sessions and break-out rooms, with separate audio, screens and a technician in each active room, and we have worked the NAMM show in the same building. Convention halls need distributed sound rather than one system at the front, and confirmed rigging points for anything flown.
How many technicians does a multi-room convention need?
A multi-room convention needs one technician per active room plus a lead coordinating the schedule across all of them. A general session with presenters, video playback and streaming usually needs two people. Rooms running back to back need enough crew to reset one while another is live, and understaffing is the most common reason a convention falls behind schedule in the afternoon.
How much does corporate event production cost in Anaheim?
Corporate AV in Anaheim is quoted per room and per day. Published industry figures put standard conference audio at $5,000 to $10,000, with a 300-person multi-day conference running $5,000 to $15,000 each for audio and video plus $10,000 to $25,000 in crew. Room count is what moves the number most, because rooms drive crew and crew is the largest line.
Do you serve the rest of Orange County?
Yes, we serve Orange County including Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, traveling from our Ventura warehouse. Travel and crew lodging are quoted as their own lines rather than being hidden in the equipment cost. For a small single-room meeting a local Orange County supplier is often the better answer, and we will tell you when that is the case.
Call (805) 963-7756 for a free quote, or send us your event date, venue and rough headcount and we will come back with a scoped estimate.
