Event Production Teams Track Gear Availability in Spreadsheets. AV-Specific Software Costs $65+/mo Per User.

Small AV and event production companies run a complex operation: sourcing the right equipment for each show, preventing double-booking of a PA system, tracking which technician is on which gig, and invoicing the client before the check gets lost. Most do all of this in Google Sheets. The tools that handle this properly start at $65+/mo per user once you add the modules a real AV operation needs.

⚠️ Honest take: Rentman is well-regarded by the r/livesound community and genuinely does the job for AV companies that can absorb its modular pricing of €39/mo base plus €14-24/mo per user per module. The real risk is that Booqable, the most affordable competitor at $29/mo, added bundle pricing controls in November 2025 and may add crew scheduling within 12-18 months. If they do, the pricing gap narrows significantly. That said, Booqable has positioned itself as a generic rental tool for all industries, and vertical-specific positioning for AV production companies is a durable differentiation strategy. See the full Devil's Advocate section below.

The Problem & Opportunity

The live events and AV production industry sits at a fascinating intersection: it is operationally complex, the businesses are small, and the software either serves large production companies with enterprise budgets or generic rental shops with no event-specific needs. For a two-person AV company doing corporate events, weddings, and festivals, the tooling gap is real and persistent.

🎯 The Opportunity

Audio visual and event production is a physical logistics business that happens to serve live entertainment and corporate events. A small AV rental company owns hundreds of items: mixing consoles, speaker cabinets, amplifiers, cable looms, lighting fixtures, trussing, staging panels, microphones, stands, and more. Every single event requires a specific subset of these items, assigned to a truck, loaded out, used, returned, inventoried, and prepared for the next show.

The core workflow gap: a small AV company running 10 events per month needs to answer five questions before every job: (1) Is the equipment available on that date? (2) What exact items are going on this truck? (3) Who is the crew for this show? (4) What does the client need to know about load-in time? (5) What is the invoice amount?

Right now, most small AV companies answer these questions with a combination of Google Sheets for equipment availability, Google Calendar for crew scheduling, email or WhatsApp for client communication, and a separate invoicing tool. This multi-app cobbling causes exactly the problems the community describes: double-booking gear, lost equipment, inconsistent invoicing, and crew confusion.

The opportunity is to build one focused tool at $29/mo flat that handles all five questions for companies with 1-5 team members. Not a full Rentman replacement for 50-person production houses. A focused tool for the smallest segment of the AV industry that existing tools price out at their add-on tiers.

In the February 2026 r/livesound thread titled "How does everyone manage their inventory stock for hires or while on large projects?", one commenter explicitly recommended building "a big ass spreadsheet that auto calculates shortages weekly." This is the 2026 state of the art for smaller AV operations that cannot absorb the per-user add-on pricing of incumbent solutions.

The opportunity type is Vertical Opportunity combined with Pricing Gap: horizontal tools (Booqable, generic rental platforms) exist at affordable prices but lack the AV-specific workflow features that define how these businesses actually operate. Meanwhile, purpose-built AV tools (Rentman, Goodshuffle Pro, Current RMS) are too expensive for teams of 1-3 people once you configure all required modules.

👤 Ideal Customer Profile

The primary customer is the owner-operator of a small AV rental and production company. This person has likely been doing AV work for 5-15 years as a freelance technician or employee of a larger company, and has recently started their own operation with a modest inventory investment of $20,000 to $150,000 in equipment.

Core profile:

• Size: 1-5 employees or contractors, often including the owner as lead engineer
• Event volume: 5-40 events per month, ranging from corporate presentations to weddings, festivals, concerts, and trade shows
• Revenue: $5,000 to $80,000 per month in rental revenue
• Geography: Anywhere events happen (Europe, North America, Australia, South America, the global AV market is distributed)
• Technical level: Comfortable with tech tools, uses Slack or WhatsApp for team communication, likely already has a Stripe or PayPal account for invoicing
• Pain points: Double-booking gear, manually building quotes in spreadsheets, chasing clients for event details, forgetting what equipment went on a particular job, losing track of damaged items
• Budget tolerance: Comfortable paying $20-50/mo for software that saves 3-5 hours per week of administrative work

Secondary customers:

• Freelance AV technicians who own 50-200 items and manage their own bookings
• Lighting and staging rental companies serving the same event market
• DJ and entertainment companies that also own lighting and sound equipment
• Small touring production companies with a permanent equipment base

Anti-customer: Large production companies with 20+ employees and complex multi-department workflows already served by Rentman, Current RMS, or Flex Rental Solutions. These companies need features like multi-location inventory, complex budgeting, and enterprise crew management that a solo developer cannot realistically build at this price point.

🔥 Why Now

Several converging factors make mid-2026 the right time to build for this market:

Post-pandemic event volume has recovered and is growing. The global AV equipment rental market reached $10.21 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $18.45 billion by 2033 at a 7.25% CAGR (Verified Market Reports, February 2025). Events are back at full capacity. Small AV companies are busier than they have been in years, which means their operational pain is at a peak.

New AI-powered entrants like Stagera (launched 2026) are targeting the enterprise side of the AV market, confirming market momentum for AV-specific software. But Stagera is positioning for large production companies, not 1-3 person operations.

Rentman's per-user add-on pricing model has not changed. A 3-person AV team wanting inventory tracking, crew scheduling, and quoting on Rentman pays approximately €150+/mo. This has been the case for years, and Rentman continues to build enterprise features rather than creating a flat-rate tier for small operators.

Booqable has 250,000+ rental items tracked on its platform and recently added better bundle pricing controls (November 2025 update), but remains a generic rental platform. No meaningful AV-specific features have been added.

The r/livesound community consistently asks about AV software. Multiple threads from 2022, 2025, and 2026 demonstrate ongoing demand for affordable, focused solutions. The FileMaker thread from March 2026 shows someone building their own custom rental management system from scratch because existing solutions don't match their workflow, a clear signal of an unmet need.

📊 Validation & Proof

The evidence for this opportunity comes from multiple independent sources across several years, which validates that this is a persistent structural problem rather than a temporary gap:

Community evidence from r/livesound:

In this February 2026 discussion about inventory management for hires and large projects, one commenter explicitly recommended building "a big ass spreadsheet that auto calculates shortages weekly." This confirms that in 2026, spreadsheets remain a common solution for AV inventory management.

In this February 2026 thread with 82 upvotes and 45 comments, a user writes: "I always fantasized of simple tool/app/program that I can use regardless of platform so I decided to try Google Sheets." Active AV professionals using Google Sheets for production management in 2026.

In this July 2022 thread from Hungary, a two-person AV company asks for software recommendations. The response: "They are scalable and work one-on-one with companies of any size. I am only a two-man business." This confirms the problem exists globally, not just in the US, and that small companies (2 people) are actively seeking solutions.

In this September 2025 discussion about Rentman for crew scheduling, AV professionals discuss and compare crew management tools, confirming willingness to evaluate and pay for software.

In this March 2026 r/filemaker thread, someone is building a custom rental management system from scratch in FileMaker because existing tools don't fit their specific workflow. This is a classic signal: when people build their own solutions in low-code tools, it means no off-the-shelf option works for them.

Review platform evidence:

On Capterra's Goodshuffle Pro page, reviewers note that "some small planners and startups found it expensive" at $39/user/month for the Lite plan. This confirms that current solutions price out smaller operators.

G2 Rentman reviews highlight the app as "quite limited in its features" while the desktop platform receives praise. Small companies needing mobile access to see equipment availability on-site are underserved.

Market size validation:

The global AV equipment rental market was valued at $10.21 billion in 2024. The equipment rental software market (the software vertical specifically) was valued at approximately $190 million in 2025, growing at 7.9% CAGR (Global Growth Insights, April 2026). Even a 0.1% share of the software market represents $190,000 in recurring software revenue, a business, not just a side project.

---

The Market

The AV rental software market is mature at the enterprise level and underserved at the micro level. The tooling that exists scales well for large production companies but scales poorly for 1-5 person operations.

🏆 Competitive Landscape

The current market breaks into three tiers: affordable generic tools, mid-market event-specific tools, and enterprise AV platforms.

Tier 1: Affordable Generic Tools

Booqable ($29/mo Start, $69/mo Grow, $149/mo Scale): Booqable is the most affordable option and the one most often recommended to small rental businesses. It handles inventory management, booking calendars, online booking pages, and invoicing. Booqable has 20,000+ rental businesses using its platform and recently added better bundle pricing controls (November 2025). However, Booqable is built for all rental industries, kayak rentals, camera rentals, bouncy castle rentals, AV rentals, and has no concept of a "production event" with crew assignments, multi-day setup schedules, or AV-specific equipment bundle templates. The main G2 complaint: doesn't support assigning employee accounts to specific locations. For a growing AV operation, the $29/mo plan quickly becomes insufficient.

Reservety ($28/mo Seed, $59/mo Pro, $99/mo Enterprise): Reservety's Seed plan at $28/mo is attractive but extremely limited for real AV operations. Their comparison guides mention AV rental companies as a target but the product is a generic rental booking tool. The Seed plan lacks crew scheduling and project-level event management, the two features that differentiate AV work from simple item rentals.

Tier 2: Event-Specific Mid-Market Tools

Goodshuffle Pro ($39/user/mo Lite, $139/mo Standard flat): Goodshuffle Pro is built specifically for the event rental industry, party supplies, tents, AV equipment, floral, DJ equipment. It handles quotes, inventory, client management, and basic project tracking. The main problem for small AV companies is pricing: a 3-person team on the Lite plan pays $117/mo, and the Standard plan at $139/mo is designed for larger operations with more event types. Capterra reviewers in 2026 specifically note that "some small planners and startups found it expensive."

Rentman (€39/mo platform base + add-on modules): Rentman is the gold standard for purpose-built AV production management. The r/livesound community consistently recommends it as "the most purpose-built to our industry platform." It handles equipment inventory, crew scheduling and planning, project management, quoting and invoicing, and has both desktop and mobile apps. The fundamental problem: Rentman's modular pricing escalates rapidly. The base Platform is €39/mo, but a 3-person AV team adding Inventory (€14/user/mo), Crew (€14/user/mo), and Quoting (€9/user/mo) reaches €39 + 3×(€14+€14+€9) = approximately €150/mo per month. This is the core pricing gap.

Tier 3: Enterprise AV Platforms

Current RMS: Enterprise platform specifically for production companies. Pricing not publicly listed (request a demo). Complex setup. Best for companies with dedicated operations staff.

Flex Rental Solutions: Enterprise-grade AV and entertainment rental management. Pricing on request. Suited for large rental houses.

IntelliEvent Lightning: AV rental management platform for established production companies. Enterprise pricing.

EZRentOut ($59/mo Standard, $119/mo Premium, $499/mo Enterprise): Has an AV/Media industry module but designed primarily for construction and heavy equipment rental. At $59/mo minimum, it's accessible for small companies but the interface and feature set are overwhelming for 1-3 person AV shops.

The Gap: At $25-35/mo flat rate, you have only Booqable ($29, generic) and Reservety Seed ($28, very basic). There is no purpose-built AV production management tool at this price point that includes even basic crew notes, event project management, and equipment bundle templates.

🌊 Blue Ocean Strategy

The untouched position in this market is: purpose-built for micro AV companies, priced at a flat monthly rate with no per-user charges.

Every existing AV-specific tool either uses per-user pricing (Goodshuffle Pro, Rentman) or is built for enterprise companies (Current RMS, Flex, IntelliEvent). Every flat-rate tool at the accessible price point (Booqable, Reservety) is generic.

The positioning statement: "Everything Rentman does for one-person and two-person AV companies, at $29/mo, with no modules to configure and no per-user fees."

Four dimensions of differentiation:

1. AV-specific event model vs. generic rental model: Instead of "booking" (item reserved from date A to date B), use "production event" as the core unit. Each event has a setup day, show day, and strike day. Equipment is allocated to events, not booked by customers. This mirrors how AV companies actually think.

2. Equipment bundle templates vs. item-by-item booking: Allow saving "Basic PA System" as a bundle that includes 2x powered speakers + 1x mixing console + 4x speaker stands + cable looms. One click adds 47 items to an event. Generic rental tools require item-by-item selection.

3. Crew notes vs. no crew concept: Add basic crew assignment, "Lead Engineer: Marcus, Assistant: Priya", per event, with a simple crew view showing who is working what show each week. Not the full Rentman crew planning module, but enough to replace the Google Calendar workaround.

4. Flat rate for up to 5 team members: A 3-person AV company on Rentman pays €150/mo. The same company on this product pays $29/mo. The value proposition is so clear it sells itself.

---