By 2023, conference attendance and AV production spending had largely returned to, and in some markets exceeded, pre-pandemic levels — but the AV equipment supply chain that had been badly disrupted during the preceding years hadn’t fully recovered at the same pace. Organizers and production companies planning events in 2023 found themselves navigating a market where demand had normalized while supply, for certain equipment categories, remained meaningfully constrained.
Which Equipment Categories Were Hit Hardest
The disruption wasn’t uniform across all AV equipment types. Semiconductor-dependent components — the control boards and processing chips inside modern LED wall panels, digital mixing consoles, and networked AV equipment — faced the most persistent shortages, since these relied on global chip supply chains that had been broadly disrupted and were recovering unevenly across different chip categories and manufacturers. The scale of that disruption prompted national-level responses such as the U.S. CHIPS for America program to strengthen semiconductor supply chains, an indication of how far beyond the events industry the underlying shortage reached. More mechanically simple equipment, like basic lighting fixtures or passive audio equipment, saw comparatively faster supply normalization, since they depended less on the specific semiconductor categories facing the most persistent shortages.
This uneven recovery meant production companies had to plan equipment sourcing more carefully than in a normal market, sometimes substituting equipment categories or accepting a less-preferred specific model when a first-choice option faced longer lead times than an event’s timeline could accommodate.
Rental Companies Adjusted Booking Windows
Production and equipment rental companies responded to ongoing supply uncertainty by extending the advance-booking window they recommended to clients, pushing organizers to commit to specific equipment reservations further ahead of an event than had been standard practice before the disruption. A rental relationship that might previously have been finalized a few months before an event increasingly needed to be locked in significantly earlier, particularly for higher-demand equipment categories like LED wall panels, where rental companies themselves were managing their own inventory constraints across multiple simultaneous client bookings.
Organizers who continued planning on pre-disruption timelines sometimes found their preferred equipment unavailable by the time they went to book it, having assumed availability would work the same way it had in a less constrained market — a scheduling mismatch that pushed the more experienced production teams to build earlier equipment-locking deadlines into their own client-facing planning timelines.
Pricing Reflected the Constrained Supply
Equipment categories facing the most persistent supply constraints also saw real rental price increases relative to pre-disruption baselines, as rental companies passed through their own increased acquisition costs and balanced constrained inventory against strong client demand. This pricing pressure was felt most acutely by organizers planning large-scale productions requiring significant quantities of constrained equipment categories, while smaller productions with more modest equipment needs felt comparatively less pricing impact.
Some organizers responded to this cost pressure by reconsidering production scope — accepting a somewhat smaller LED wall or a less elaborate lighting design than they might have specified in a less constrained market — treating the supply situation as a forcing function for production-scope discipline that some organizers later reported preferring even once supply normalized further.
Secondhand and Refurbished Equipment Markets Grew
As new-equipment supply remained constrained, a more active secondary market for used and refurbished AV equipment developed to help fill the gap, particularly for equipment categories where the underlying technology hadn’t changed dramatically enough to make older units meaningfully obsolete for standard conference production use. Production companies and some larger organizers who owned rather than rented core equipment increasingly considered well-maintained secondhand units as a legitimate sourcing option, not just a budget-driven compromise, given the alternative of extended waits for new equipment.
This shift gave rise to more organized secondhand AV equipment marketplaces and dealers specifically serving the events industry, a market segment that had previously been more informal and harder for buyers to navigate confidently.
Contracts Began Building in Supply-Risk Language
Given the real risk of equipment unavailability disrupting a planned production, more sophisticated production contracts during this period began explicitly addressing what happens if specified equipment becomes unavailable closer to the event date — acceptable substitute equipment categories, and how pricing adjustments would be handled if a substitution required different rental terms. This kind of supply-contingency language had rarely been necessary in production contracts before this period, when equipment availability could be more safely assumed as a given rather than a genuine planning risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did AV equipment supply chain issues persist into 2023 even as demand recovered?
Semiconductor-dependent equipment categories — LED wall panels, digital mixing consoles, networked AV gear — relied on global chip supply chains that recovered unevenly, so even as overall event demand normalized, specific equipment categories remained supply-constrained longer than demand recovery would suggest on its own.
How did rental companies respond to ongoing supply uncertainty?
Many extended recommended advance-booking windows, pushing clients to lock in equipment reservations earlier than had been standard practice, particularly for high-demand, supply-constrained categories like LED wall panels.
Did AV equipment costs increase due to the supply constraints?
Yes, particularly for the most supply-constrained equipment categories, as rental companies passed through higher acquisition costs while balancing limited inventory against strong client demand. Smaller productions with modest equipment needs generally felt less pricing pressure than large-scale productions.
Did organizers turn to secondhand equipment during this period?
Some did, particularly for equipment categories where the underlying technology hadn’t changed enough to make older units meaningfully obsolete, giving rise to more organized secondhand AV equipment marketplaces serving the events industry specifically.
For related coverage, see our piece on LED walls vs. projection and the panel-technology considerations that intersect with supply availability.