Working effectively with a media production company is a skill that event planners develop over time, usually through a mix of good experiences and difficult ones. The event planners who consistently get the best results from their media vendors are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones who understand how the relationship works and how to structure it for success.
This guide covers the full working relationship between an event planner and a media production company, from the initial approach to the post-event review.
How to Approach a Media Production Company for the First Time
The first conversation with a media production company sets the tone for the entire engagement. Come prepared with the basic event parameters: the date, the venue, the expected audience size, the programme duration, and the primary purpose of the event. You do not need to have every detail finalized, but you need enough to have a substantive conversation about scope.
Be honest about your budget range from the beginning. A professional media production company will tell you clearly what is achievable within your budget and where the trade-offs are. A company that quotes without knowing your budget constraints is either guessing or planning to adjust the quote later.
Ask how they handled a problem at a previous corporate event. This question reveals more about their professionalism and experience than any portfolio review. The answer should be specific, calm, and focused on the resolution rather than the drama.
Building the Brief Together
The brief is the most important document in the working relationship between an event planner and a media production company. A good brief takes 30 to 60 minutes to build properly and saves several hours of confusion, revision, and disappointment afterward.
The brief should specify the event programme with timings, the key moments that require specific coverage, the deliverables required and their formats, the turnaround timeline, and the channels the content will be used on. It should also specify who the point of contact is on the event day and how programme changes will be communicated to the media team.
Ask the production company to produce a coverage plan based on your brief. Review it carefully. If something is missing or unclear, address it before the event day, not on the day itself. The coverage plan is the contract between you and the media team for what will be captured and how.
Managing the Relationship on the Event Day
On the event day, designate a single point of contact from your team who is responsible for communication with the media production team. This person needs to have real-time knowledge of the programme and the authority to make decisions about coverage priorities when conflicts arise.
Give the media crew what they need to do their job. This means access to the venue before guests arrive for setup and testing. It means informing them of programme changes as soon as you know about them rather than after the fact. It means not routing media crew questions through multiple people before they get answered.
Avoid the temptation to direct the media crew on the day unless something is genuinely wrong. A professional team with a good brief will make better real-time coverage decisions than an event planner who is simultaneously managing 20 other things. Trust the brief and let the team execute it.
Managing Deliverables and Timelines
Post-event deliverable management is where many otherwise good event coverage engagements become frustrating. The most common problems are unclear expectations about turnaround times, format requirements that were not specified in advance, and revision processes that were not agreed before the work began.
Confirm the delivery timeline in writing before the event. If you need a highlights reel within 48 hours for a press release, that needs to be in the brief with a corresponding fee if a rush premium applies. If you need the raw footage as well as the edited deliverables, say so in advance.
When reviewing deliverables, provide specific and actionable feedback rather than general impressions. “The edit is too long” is not actionable. “Please cut the networking section to 30 seconds and move the CEO address to the opening” is actionable.
Building a Long-Term Vendor Relationship
The event planners who get the best results from their media vendors are the ones who treat the relationship as a long-term partnership rather than a series of one-off transactions. A media production company that has covered several of your events understands your standards, your client preferences, and your working style in a way that a new vendor never can.
Share post-event feedback even when the coverage was good. Tell the team what worked and what could be improved. This information makes the next engagement better and signals that you are invested in the quality of the relationship.
At SBD Global, we work with a number of event planning companies in Lagos on a recurring basis. If you are looking to establish a consistent media production partnership for your events, reach out to our team and we will discuss what that looks like.