AV Installation on the Gold Coast: What It Costs and How to Brief an Integrator

There's no flat rate for an AV install, and any quote that arrives without a site visit or a proper brief is a guess. The price is built from a handful of variables, and once you understand them you can read a quote properly instead of just comparing bottom lines.

• Scope and room count: a single huddle room with one screen and a soundbar is a very different job from kitting out a boardroom, a training room and a reception signage screen in one hit.
• Displays and projection: screen size, brightness, whether it's a standard panel or an LED wall, and how many you need. Bright rooms and large viewing distances push this up.
• Audio complexity: a soundbar with a built-in mic is entry level; ceiling mic arrays, multiple speakers and proper conference audio for a large room cost more because there's design and tuning behind them.
• Video conferencing: a basic Zoom or Teams room is straightforward; auto-framing cameras, dual displays and integration with your existing calendar and booking system add to it.
• Control and automation: a wall plate and a couple of buttons is cheap; a touch-panel control system that drives lighting, displays, sources and blinds from one screen is a bigger build.
• Infrastructure: cable runs through walls and ceilings, a proper equipment rack, power and network points — the parts no one sees but that take the most labour, especially in an existing fit-out.
• Labour and access: working around a live office, after-hours install windows, ceiling height and how easy the cable paths are all move the number.

As a rough frame, a simple single-room video-conference setup sits at the lower end, while a multi-room or venue-wide integration with control systems runs well above it. We don't publish fixed prices because honest ones don't exist without seeing the space — but a scoped quote will itemise every one of the above so you can see exactly what you're paying for.

The single biggest reason AV quotes come back wildly different is that everyone's pricing a slightly different job. A clear brief fixes that. You don't need technical language — you need to describe how the room gets used.

• The rooms: how many, roughly what size, and what each one is for (board meetings, all-staff presentations, training, reception signage, hybrid calls).
• The people: how many sit in each room, and where the furthest person is from the screen — that decides display size and audio.
• What it has to do: present from a laptop, run Zoom or Teams calls, play digital signage, support a guest speaker with a microphone — list the real tasks.
• Who operates it: staff with no AV training, or a technical person? This decides how simple the control system needs to be.
• The building: own it or lease it, age of the fit-out, whether you can run new cabling or are stuck with what's there.
• Timing and disruption: can the installer work during business hours, or does it have to be after-hours and weekends?
• Existing gear: anything you already own that should be reused rather than replaced.

Give every supplier the same brief and the quotes become genuinely comparable. It also flushes out the integrators who ask good follow-up questions — the ones who do are the ones who'll get your install right. A proper supplier will want a site visit before quoting anything beyond a single room, and that's a good sign, not a delay.

A well-run install is mostly invisible by the time you see it, but there's a sequence behind it worth knowing so you can tell whether yours is being done properly.

It starts before anyone arrives with gear: a confirmed design, a cable plan, and agreed access times. On the day, infrastructure goes in first — cable runs, rack, mounts and power — then the equipment, then configuration and tuning. Conference audio in particular needs tuning to the actual room, not just plugged in, or you get echo and dropouts on calls.

Then it's tested the way you'll actually use it: a real Teams or Zoom call, a laptop presentation, the signage running, the control panel driving everything. You should be in the room for that, not handed the keys cold.

Two things separate a finished install from a dumped one. First, documentation — a simple record of what's installed, how it's wired and how to restart it if something hangs. Second, training — your staff being walked through the system so it actually gets used instead of sitting idle because no one's sure which button does what. Both are part of how we hand over an install, alongside the design and integration itself.

Worth knowing for peace of mind: we own our equipment and carry backup kit, and we're fully insured with $20 million public liability cover — which matters when contractors are running cable through your ceilings and working in an occupied building.

Before you commit to an AV install, a short list of questions will tell you a lot about who you're dealing with and what you're actually buying.

• Will you do a site visit before quoting, or is this priced sight-unseen? For anything past a single room, insist on the visit.
• What exactly is included — design, cabling, the rack, programming, testing, training — and what's quoted separately?
• Who tunes the conference audio to the room, and is that in the price?
• What happens if something fails after handover? What's the support arrangement and response time?
• Are you insured, and to what level? You want it in writing before anyone's on a ladder in your building.
• Will I get documentation and a handover, or just a working system on the day?
• Can the install be staged or done after-hours to avoid shutting down the office?
• If we expand later, will this design scale, or does it lock us into one brand or supplier?

The answers separate integrators who think about the system living in your building for years from those pricing a one-day job. We work across the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Byron Bay and the Sunshine Coast, and we're based in Runaway Bay — so a site visit isn't a logistics problem, it's just part of doing the job properly.