AV and Staging Equipment Transport Across the UK

Production logistics is not a delivery problem, it is a timing problem. Nobody in this industry cares that the vehicle arrived on the right day - they care that it arrived inside the get-in window, because the venue gave them four hours and the doors open at seven.

T&C Logistics moves AV, lighting and staging equipment for production companies, dry-hire houses, venues, integrators and corporate event teams. Single-case emergency replacements, full production loads, and the get-out at two in the morning. We have run specialist transport since 2020 with over 2,400 deliveries completed and more than 3,000 vetted driver-partners nationwide, working overnight and at weekends as standard. Goods-in-transit cover is £50,000 per consignment, extending to £1,000,000 through partners. Quotes from £50 (ex VAT), quoted in full upfront.

What AV and staging equipment does T&C Logistics carry?

Flight-cased audio, lighting and video: line array cabinets, subwoofers, amplifier racks, moving heads, LED video panels, control desks, truss, rostra, drapes and cable trunks. Effectively anything a production company packs into a case.

Flight cases are designed for exactly this - castors, recessed handles, foam interiors and a rigid shell - which makes AV equipment easier to move than most heavy kit, provided the vehicle can take castors and the tail lift can take the weight. The difficulty is rarely the individual item; it is total volume against a fixed get-in time.

Our studio equipment van and Luton van for event logistics are the usual starting points, with 7.5-tonne and larger for full production loads.

How do you work to a get-in time?

By treating the get-in as the deadline and building the schedule backwards from it, including load time, route contingency and the venue's access constraints. A delivery window is a range; a get-in is a door that opens and closes.

Venue access is usually the binding constraint. Theatres and concert halls have a single get-in door, often onto a street with a loading restriction, and a scheduled slot. Exhibition halls have marshalling yards where vehicles queue for a call-forward. Hotels and conference centres have a service lift with a stated capacity and a booking sheet. Each of these changes the arrival plan.

Give us the get-in time, the venue's loading arrangements, and any vehicle height or length restriction on the approach. Vehicles are GPS-tracked so you can see position in real time, drivers hold Driver CPC, and vehicles are ULEZ-compliant for central London venues. For genuinely time-critical single items see our time-critical delivery service.

Do you work overnight and at weekends?

Yes, and for production work that is the normal case rather than the exception. Get-outs typically start when the audience has left and finish in the early hours.

The pattern across live events is consistent: load in during the morning, show in the evening, get-out overnight, back at the hire company's warehouse for the morning check-in. A carrier who works office hours is no use in that cycle. Our driver network covers overnight and weekend running nationwide, which also matters for touring work where the next venue's get-in may be the following morning several hundred miles away.

Festival and outdoor work adds its own constraints - site access over grass or trackway, weather-dependent scheduling and marshalled entry. See our festival logistics service and events and exhibitions industry hub.

Who is responsible for rigging and flying equipment?

Your crew or the venue's. We deliver equipment to the point of use; we do not rig, fly, hang or electrically connect it.

This is a competence and legal boundary. Lifting equipment used to fly truss, line array and fixtures is subject to the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998, which require lifting operations to be planned by a competent person and equipment to be thoroughly examined at defined intervals. Work equipment generally falls under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Rigging is a specialist trade with its own qualifications and it is not part of a transport contract.

What we do is get the cases into the room, in the order the crew wants them, at the time they need them. That ordering is worth specifying: telling us that the truss and rostra go in first and the control desks last saves the crew moving everything twice.

What insurance covers hire stock in transit?

Goods-in-transit cover of £50,000 per consignment on our own vehicles, rising to £1,000,000 through our partner network, plus £1,000,000 public liability.

AV is one area where the standard limit needs checking against reality rather than assumed adequate. A full LED video wall load, a large line array system or a rack of high-end fixtures can exceed £50,000 in a single vehicle without looking like an unusual load. Tell us the consignment value at quote stage and we will confirm in writing the limit that applies to your job, arranging increased cover where the load requires it.

For consignments where value is concentrated in a small number of cases, our locked cage van and high-value courier service add physical security to the cover. Every vehicle is GPS-tracked throughout.

Can you handle a cross-hire between two hire companies?

Yes, and cross-hires are common in this industry: one company's job needs stock another company holds, often at short notice and often over a weekend. The transport is straightforward; the paperwork discipline is what matters.

The complication is that neither company necessarily has staff on site at both ends, and the equipment belongs to one company while being in the possession of another. We record collection and delivery times, addresses and the person releasing and receiving at each end, with GPS tracking throughout the journey. That record is what settles a dispute about condition or timing later.

Tell us at booking who owns the stock, who is paying for the movement and who has authority to release it. Where a cross-hire is going straight to a venue rather than to the hiring company's warehouse, we need the get-in details rather than a depot address, and those are different pieces of information.

What happens if equipment is damaged in transit?

It is covered by our goods-in-transit insurance up to the applicable limit, and the record of the journey establishes what happened. For hire stock, the practical priority is usually a replacement before the show rather than a claim.

This is worth planning for rather than reacting to. A damaged fixture two hours before doors is a production problem first and an insurance problem second, so the useful question at booking is what the fallback is - whether the hire company holds spares, whether a second unit can be brought from another depot, and how long that would take.

Our cover is £50,000 per consignment on our own vehicles, extending to £1,000,000 through the partner network, with £1,000,000 public liability. Where a consignment exceeds the standard limit, tell us at quote stage and we will confirm the arrangement in writing before the job runs. Every vehicle is GPS-tracked and every driver-partner is vetted.

Do you carry batteries and other regulated items in AV loads?

Yes, with the right classification. Lithium batteries in wireless systems, radio mic packs, battery-powered fixtures and portable power stations are subject to dangerous-goods rules when carried as freight.

Lithium batteries are classified under UN3480 and UN3481 depending on whether they travel alone or installed in equipment, and carriage by road is governed by the ADR agreement. Our drivers hold ADR certification, which is one of the credentials T&C Logistics holds directly rather than through partners. Most AV loads fall well inside the thresholds that apply, but the classification still has to be right.

Tell us at booking if a load includes loose battery stock, large-format portable power, or anything else regulated - haze fluid and certain pyrotechnic effects have their own rules. See our hazardous goods service and lithium battery courier service.

Can you handle a touring schedule or a multi-venue run?

Yes. Touring is a sequence of fixed get-ins with driving time between them, and it is planned as a route with drivers' hours built in rather than as a series of separate bookings.

The constraint that catches people out is drivers' hours. A get-out finishing at 03:00 and a get-in 250 miles away at 08:00 is not always legally achievable with one driver, and the answer is either a second driver, a different departure plan or an earlier get-out. We would rather establish that at planning stage than discover it at three in the morning.

For corporate and exhibition touring see our exhibition and events logistics service and exhibition stand truck. To discuss a tour or a production schedule, call 0121 720 3841 or use our contact page. Quotes from £50 (ex VAT), with the final price depending on distance, vehicle, urgency and time - always quoted in full upfront.