How Much Does AV Equipment Hire Cost on the Gold Coast? (2026 Price Guide)

If you just want a ballpark, here's the lay of the land for a standard one-day hire on the Gold Coast in 2026. Treat every figure as an indicative range to budget against, confirmed at quote stage.

• Basic PA / sound system (a couple of powered speakers, a mic or two, stands and cables): typically from around $130–$200 per day. A single presentation PA with one wireless mic, delivered and set up, sits at the lower end of that.
• Projector and screen package: typically from around $120–$250 per day depending on projector brightness and screen size.
• LED video wall: priced per square metre, generally from around $70–$140 per panel per day, with most usable indoor walls landing somewhere between $900 and $4,000+ per day once you factor in size, processing and rigging.
• Portable staging: from around $90 for a small DIY pickup deck, or from around $330 delivered, built and removed for a presentation-sized stage.
• Delivery and pickup: typically a base fee from around $30–$50 plus roughly $2 per km one way, or $2–$4 per km for a return run.

Those are the headline numbers. The rest of this guide breaks down each category so you can see what moves the price up or down — and where it's worth spending versus where it isn't. (All figures are indicative Gold Coast market ranges for 2026 and are confirmed against a live quote spec'd to your specific event.)

Audio is where most events start, and it's the easiest category to under-budget. The price is driven almost entirely by how many people need to hear, and how clearly.

Small presentations and meetings (up to ~50 people, speech and a bit of background music) usually need a single powered speaker, a wireless microphone, a stand and cables. Expect from around $130–$160 per day delivered and set up for a package like this — and an individual active speaker on its own often hires from around $50 per day if you're collecting it yourself.

Mid-sized functions (50–200 people — a wedding reception, a gala, a conference breakout) typically need two or more speakers, possibly a subwoofer, a small mixer and a couple of microphones. Packages here commonly run from around $250–$600 per day depending on the kit and whether delivery and setup are included. A quality wireless handheld mic alone hires from around $100 per day.

Larger or live-music events (200+, bands, festivals, outdoor PA) move into line-array territory with monitors, multi-channel mixing and more power. Pricing at this level is genuinely event-specific and is best quoted directly.

The big variables: number of microphones (lapel and headset mics cost more than handhelds), whether you need a foldback/monitor setup for performers, and whether you want someone running sound on the day. For anything with live music or multiple presenters cutting between sources, an operator is usually money well spent — more on that below. See our approach to event audio under sound engineering, or browse sound gear in the catalogue. All figures here are indicative 2026 ranges confirmed at quote.

Projection is still the most cost-effective way to get a big image in front of a room, and for most corporate and community events it beats LED on budget comfortably.

A standard projector-and-screen package — a data projector, a tripod or fast-fold screen, and the cables to plug a laptop in — typically hires from around $120–$250 per day on the Gold Coast. Add a laptop to the package and you're usually looking at a small step up. As always, that's an indicative range confirmed against your actual spec at quote.

The two things that move the price:

• Brightness (lumens). A projector that looks great in a darkened boardroom will wash out completely in a bright marquee or a room with big windows. Higher-lumen projectors for large or bright spaces cost more to hire, and they're worth it — nothing kills a presentation like a ghost of an image nobody can read.
• Screen size and type. A 2m tripod screen is cheap and fine for a meeting; a 3m+ fast-fold with dress kit for a stage looks far more professional and costs more. Match the screen to the back of the room: people in the last row should be able to read your smallest slide text comfortably.

Where projection struggles is outdoors in daylight, or any time the audience is large and the ambient light is high. That's the point where LED starts to make sense — even though it costs more — because it stays bright and crisp in conditions that defeat a projector. Compare options under AV for events.

LED video walls are the premium option, and the pricing model is different from everything else on this page: you pay per square metre (or per panel), not per item.

As a rough guide, LED panels typically hire from around $70–$140 per panel per day, and panels are usually around half a square metre each. In practice, a usable indoor wall for a conference or product launch commonly lands somewhere between $900 and $4,000+ per day once you account for the screen itself, the processing/scaling hardware that drives it, and the rigging or ground-support structure that holds it up. Large, festival-grade outdoor screens (10m² and up) sit well above that range. These are indicative 2026 ranges — a live quote, spec'd to your wall size and venue, gives you the real figure.

What you're paying for, beyond the panels:

• Pixel pitch (resolution). Tighter pixel pitch means a sharper image up close — important when the audience is near the screen — and it costs more per square metre. For a screen viewed from a distance, a coarser, cheaper pitch is fine.
• Indoor vs outdoor. Outdoor-rated panels are brighter and weatherproof, and they cost more.
• Processing and content. A video wall needs a processor to map your content across the panels correctly. Bespoke or pixel-mapped content is extra.
• Rigging and labour. LED almost always involves a build crew and structure, which is a real line item rather than a drop-and-go.

LED is the right call when you need genuine brightness (daylight, big rooms), a non-standard shape or size, or a high-impact look that projection can't match. For everything else, projection usually wins on value. See LED screens for the full picture, or browse what's available in the catalogue.

Staging is modular: it's built from 1m x 1m decks that lock together, so you can configure almost any size and set the height (typically anywhere from ~20cm up to ~90cm). Because of that, it's priced by configuration rather than a flat rate. A small deck you collect and assemble yourself can hire from around $90, while a presentation-sized stage delivered, built and removed typically starts from around $330, with larger configurations running up toward $900+. Stage skirting, steps and handrails are usually small add-ons. As with everything on this page, those are indicative 2026 ranges confirmed at quote.

Then there are the costs people routinely forget when comparing quotes:

• Delivery and pickup. On the Gold Coast this is typically a base fee from around $30–$50 plus roughly $2 per km one way, or $2–$4 per km for a return (delivery + collection) run, measured from the supplier's base. If you're out at Byron Bay or up toward the Sunshine Coast, this is a real number — ask for it upfront.
• Multi-day hire. Many suppliers charge additional days at around 50% of the day rate, so a three-day hire is far from triple the cost. If your event spans setup, show day and bump-out, factor this in.
• Cabling, stands and adaptors. A reputable hire company includes these; a cheap quote that omits them isn't really cheaper.
• Power and distribution. Bigger setups need proper power distribution, especially outdoors.

Using a single supplier who covers sound, vision, staging and rigging on one invoice often works out cheaper and less stressful than stitching together three separate hires — and it removes the finger-pointing if something needs sorting on the day. It also means the gear is owned and backed up by one team: OnPoint owns its kit rather than sub-hiring it, carries hot/redundant backup gear on site, and is fully insured with $20 million public liability cover, so the night isn't riding on a single power lead. See staging and rigging for how we approach builds.

This is the question that decides whether your event runs smoothly or becomes a stressful afternoon of someone fiddling with cables. Dry hire (gear only) is cheaper. But there are clear cases where having an operator or technician on site is worth the extra cost:

• Live music or multiple presenters. Anything with bands, mixing between sources, or speakers handing off microphones benefits enormously from a sound operator. Feedback, dropouts and dead mics are almost always operator-preventable problems.
• Anything with a 'show' to it. If lighting, vision and audio need to be cued together — an awards night, a launch, a conference with video rolls — a technician keeps it tight.
• High-stakes corporate events. When the room is full of clients or executives, you don't want the AV to be a DIY experiment. The cost of an operator is small next to the cost of a visible failure — and because our crew carries redundant backup gear, a failed mic or screen gets swapped, not stared at.
• Unfamiliar or complex kit. LED walls, line-array PA and multi-camera setups aren't plug-and-play.

Conversely, dry hire is perfectly sensible for a simple meeting PA, a single projector, or a small party where someone confident can press play. Operator and technician day rates vary with the role and the hours, so they're quoted per event — the honest answer is that for anything you can't afford to have go wrong, it's worth asking. We can quote gear-only or fully crewed, whichever suits. Tell us what the event is and we'll tell you straight.