You can bring your own AV company to all three convention centres.
In two of the three, the rigging is not yours.

Miami Beach is a barrier island, and the Center’s own directions page names the only three ways onto it: the I-395 MacArthur Causeway, the I-195 Julia Tuttle Causeway and the Venetian Causeway. Every truck, every road case and every generator crosses a bridge to get to this building. There is no service route that avoids one, and a truck that misses its window on an island cannot simply drive round the block and come back in ten minutes.

The docks themselves are generous and they are enclosed: the north dock is 108,543 square feet with 19 dock spaces, the south dock 31,020 square feet with 13, one on each side of the building so a show can load from both. But the count is fixed, and on a busy floor those spaces are assigned rather than available.

The way we plan against it is to treat the dock as an appointment rather than a destination. Trucks are sequenced to a named dock at a named hour in the load-in schedule, the rest of the fleet stages off-island, and causeway traffic is a line in the plan rather than a surprise on the morning. The Center publishes its distances for the same reason we build them in: 12 miles from Miami International, six from downtown Miami and PortMiami.

The Center does not publish clear heights or rigging capacities for the halls or the Grand Ballroom on its public planner pages. Room areas and capacities are there; trim is not. Do not design a flown package off a floor plan — those numbers come from the building’s technical operations team and from walking the room, and we get them before a plot is drawn.

It publishes no rigging policy either. Unlike Broward and Palm Beach, which both state in writing who owns the rigging, Miami Beach says nothing on its public pages about who may hang a point, who reviews a plot or what labour a show has to use. Third-party listings will tell you, and they contradict each other, so do not plan a hang off one. Get the answer from the Center in writing, for your dates and with your production company named, before the plot is drawn rather than after.

What that uncertainty rewards is drawings. A rigging plot with points, point loads, trim heights and a hang order, issued early enough to be read and approved by whoever turns out to own the review, is worth more here than another rigger on your own call sheet.

Edlen Electrical Exhibition Service is listed by the Center as its electrical contractor, described as the nation’s leading temporary utility contractor for the trade show, convention and special event industry. Temporary power is ordered through that route.

The Center does not publish per-hall service capacities on its public pages. For anything with a real load behind it — a wide LED wall, a full lighting rig, a broadcast position — get the available service confirmed in writing before the load-in plan is locked, because on an island the fallback of trucking in a generator at short notice is a bridge crossing and a permit conversation, not an errand.

The permission is published in one sentence: “Outside suppliers are permitted to operate in the Center for certain non-exclusive services with prior approval by MBCC Management.” There are two conditions inside it. The service has to be one of the non-exclusive ones, and approval has to be in hand in advance.

Exclusive, so not yours to bring: catering and food and beverage, which is Sodexo Live!; internet, which is Smart City Networks; and valet parking, which is First Class Parking Systems. If your programme depends on bandwidth — a stream, a live demo, a voting app — that order goes to Smart City and it goes in early.

Not exclusive: Encore Production Services is listed as a preferred provider for AV and rigging, which is a different thing from a required one. So the answer to “can we bring our own production company into the Miami Beach Convention Center” is yes, on the Center’s own published terms: a non-exclusive service, with management’s prior approval in hand before the load-in.

The Center’s published rule for the dock is short and it is absolute: “The loading dock is designated strictly for loading and unloading only.” Nothing parks there. Dock schedules are coordinated through the show’s exhibitor services contractor, so a production truck arriving outside that schedule is arriving without a bay.

The parking garage is not the fallback a crew assumes it is. The Center states that oversize parking over 6 feet 8 inches is not available. That excludes a box truck, a sprinter with anything on the roof and most production vans. Where the crew vehicles live between load-in and show is a question to settle in the schedule, not at seven in the morning at the garage entrance.

Dock door counts and dimensions are not published on the Center’s public pages. They come from the event manager along with the floor plan, and they are worth asking for by number rather than by adjective.

The Center publishes room areas and seated capacities for every space; clear heights are not published alongside them, and the capacity charts are distributed as downloadable drawings rather than as text. Treat trim height here as a survey item.

Rigging, however, is published and it is unambiguous. “Everlast Productions is the exclusive provider of motors, truss and rigging equipment.” The same page adds that Everlast “is responsible for the review and approval of ALL rigging plans prior to the commencement of all shows.” Your plot is a submission before it is a plan.

The labour is a second, separate lock. “The Center has a collective bargaining agreement with IATSE Local Union 500. IATSE is the Center’s exclusive Technical Services personnel.” Technical Services personnel are required for rigging in the ballrooms and exhibit halls, excluding trade-show aisle signage, and “All audio-visual load-in, set-up, event production, move-out, and load-out are to be employed by the Center Technical Services personnel. All contractors providing staging and production, or audio-visual production may provide supervision only.”

Two exclusivities stacked on one show is a scheduling problem more than a cost one. The equipment comes from one place, the approval from the same place, and the hands from another — so the plot has to be finished early enough to survive a review, and the load-in schedule has to be written around a call that is not yours to move.

This is the best-published power in the three buildings. The main exhibit halls on the first level carry “100AMP 3 Phase service every 30 feet on center”, with larger services available along the perimeter areas, and water and air available through access points in the exhibit hall column supports. Edlen is the Center’s electrical contact.

A grid at that density changes the shape of the conversation. In that hall the question about a wide LED wall or a full lighting rig is usually where the distribution lands and how far the feeder has to run — not whether the building has the amperage. That is not true of every ballroom in this market, and it is one of the reasons a show that outgrows a hotel ends up here.

You can bring your own AV company, and the Center’s own production services page sets the terms rather than denying it: “If an outside AV supplier is contracted, the Event Manager will need to be notified. Additional charges for use of house sound will be incurred.”

That second sentence catches people. “All rooms within the facility are equipped with in-house sound systems. Everlast Productions is also responsible for the patching of these systems.” A show that brings its own PA still meets house sound the moment it needs the room’s own speakers — for a walk-in, a page, a life-safety announcement — so the line belongs in the budget from the start and the notification belongs in the first conversation with the event manager, not the last.

Internet is ordered through the Center, and the free tier is narrower than people expect: “Complimentary basic Wi-Fi is available under BCCC-GUEST in pre-function space only.” All exhibit hall floor pockets, meeting rooms and ballrooms are wired for Ethernet, and the building carries fibre and Cat 5/6 throughout. Nothing on stage should depend on guest Wi-Fi in any building, and in this one it cannot, because in the hall there is not any.

The dock entrance is on Okeechobee Boulevard, reachable only from the right-hand side travelling eastbound, just past Parker Avenue. There are 11 bays, each able to take a 53-foot trailer with the cab attached, plus one dock ramp, a three-lane load-in ramp, a 29-foot-2-inch roll-up door into Hall B and a designated marshalling area. Bays 1 and 2 are reserved for the building’s own daily deliveries; bays 3 through 11 are for event use, allocated by the event manager when shows overlap.

The Center runs an open loading dock policy — exhibitors may load, unload, move in, move out, set up and dismantle their own exhibits without restriction — subject to whatever decorator contract the show itself has signed, and with the note that building labour may be required for certain dock procedures. One small line in the guide is worth more than it looks: “It is also strongly recommended that you bring your own dock plates.”

The building does not accept freight of any kind and provides no receiving service. Materials for the meeting rooms or the ballroom should arrive at the dock no more than three days before the event start date, and somebody from your team has to be on site to sign for them. Nothing can arrive before the contracted period begins without approval, and there is no storage.

Anything going up to the second-floor ballroom or meeting rooms goes in the freight elevator: 20,000-pound capacity, badge access, and an elevator operator is required for all move-in and move-out with a six-hour minimum shift. For exhibit hall events a dock manager is required on every move-in, event and move-out day, six hours minimum, with gate control agents through move-in and move-out hours. Personally owned vehicles get 30 minutes on the ramp, and the ramp has to be completely clear one hour before hall doors open.

Last one, and it strands crews everywhere: garage clearance is 8 feet on the first floor and 7 feet 2 inches above it. Oversized vehicles need prior approval for the flat lot or the dock.

The exhibit hall is 100,000 square feet of ground-level contiguous space that splits down the middle into two column-free halls of 50,000, under a 29.2-foot ceiling. The ballroom is 22,000 square feet, divides into four, sits under 24.5 feet and is described by the Center as having multiple rigging capabilities for lighting and sound, wrapped in 10,000 square feet of pre-function behind 45-foot windows.

The 14-foot meeting rooms are the number to design around rather than against. At 14 feet to the ceiling a breakout is a ground-supported room — screens on stands and lighting on bases, not points — and every one of the 19 rooms already has a built-in projection screen and acoustic panelling, which changes what a simple breakout package needs to be at all.

Rigging is not yours here either, and the Center says so twice. Its audio-visual page: “extensive power distribution and all rigging services are exclusive to the building and must be ordered directly through us.” Its facility guide: “Rigging is exclusively managed by the PBCCC.” All rigging schedules must be coordinated with the event manager at least 30 days before the event, which is the hardest deadline on this page.

And the line that catches outside crews who read only the first half of the policy: “Any outside AV providers requiring lifts or specialized access equipment are responsible for supplying their own lifts.” You are welcome in the building; the lift comes on your truck.

Building service is published as 120V to 480V, single and three phase, with full electrical support available. The exhibit hall has floor boxes every 30 feet serving 24 booths, carrying data, electricity and voice, with fibre and copper for analogue and digital, plus water and compressed air. Meeting room rentals include standard permanent power for the room.

What you cannot do is bring your own distribution: extensive power distribution is one of the two things the Center holds exclusively, ordered directly through the building. The facility standard is single-pole or pin-and-sleeve devices to eliminate bare-wire connections, and all distribution must be UL/ETL listed and meet state and local code — which is worth knowing before a production company shows up with a company switch and camlocks.

The plainest statement of the three: “Clients and exhibitors are welcome to bring in their own audiovisual providers.” The facility guide repeats it — “While you are welcome to bring in the AV provider of your choice” — and describes Encore as the on-site audio-visual partner rather than a requirement.

Exclusive to the building: all rigging services, extensive power distribution, and all food and beverage, which OVG Hospitality provides as the exclusive on-site caterer covering catering, concessions and exhibitor booth service.

Not exclusive: decorators and service contractors. The Center states that it “does not have exclusive agreements with decorator service providers” and asks that your choice be run past the event manager for approval. Outside security is allowed on the same footing — Florida-licensed, insured, approved by the Public Safety Manager with 30 days’ notice — except that extra-duty police scheduling stays with the Center and no other armed personnel are permitted.

Wi-Fi is complimentary throughout the building, including the meeting rooms, ballroom and exhibit hall. Anything beyond general Wi-Fi needs 45 days’ notice — a longer lead than the rigging deadline, and the one most often missed on a show that adds a stream late.