AV Labor Program Manager

General Summary

Blue Danube Productions has provided high-quality AV event production management for nearly 20 years in the Pacific Northwest and around the world. To produce and execute over 200 events per year, managing our technical AV labor needs is one of the most important elements of our business. Beyond staffing our own live event productions, BDP provides technical AV labor services directly to several nationally recognized clients across the country.

The AV Labor Program Manager owns this side of the business end to end. This role has four core areas of responsibility: overall ownership and performance of the labor staffing business; direct management of the Labor Scheduling team; identifying, hiring, training, and maintaining BDP's national pool of freelance AV labor; and building and executing a strategy to grow the business by winning new clients. This is a leadership role that combines hands-on people management, high-level client relationship ownership, and business development, and requires someone who understands the AV industry, can operate across multiple priorities at once, and brings strong judgment to both client-facing and team-facing situations. Currently, the Labor scheduling team is responsible for managing resource allocation to our corporate clients who hire BDP to provide overhire labor staffing. In the future, this role will work in coordination with BDP Ops to develop a strategy to oversee the labor allocation and assignment of all live production labor needs.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Essential duties fall into four core areas:

1. Business Ownership & Client Relationships

• Own day-to-day operations and overall performance of BDP's labor staffing business line, ensuring service quality, profitability, and operational excellence across all engagements.

• Serve as the primary point of contact and relationship owner for BDP's key national labor staffing clients, managing the overall relationship and escalation of key issues.

• Establish and maintain solid, reciprocal relationships with designated client contacts and vendors.

• Create accurate proposals, quotes, and invoices as needed, and manage invoicing end-to-end, including generating, tracking, following up on, and reconciling client invoices and payments.

• Ensure event and account profitability margins are met.

2. Labor Scheduling & Team Management

• Own your own labor scheduling book of business that will be split between you and the existing labor scheduling team. Duties to include but not limited to creation of jobs in internal BDP systems, manage incoming shift requests, identifying and assigning labor shifts, act as point of contact for AV technicians, quoting and invoicing, and reporting.

• Directly oversee and manage the duties, workload, and performance of the Labor scheduling team.

• Establish clear goals and expectations for labor schedulers in their daily operations and client interactions to ensure the highest level of customer service is achieved.

• Coach and develop the scheduling team, providing guidance on complex client and scheduling situations.

• Establish and refine processes and procedures to ensure client-facing work is executed consistently and at the highest level.

• Develop strategy in coordination with BDP Ops team to extend purview of Labor scheduling team to include all live production event labor requirements in 2027 and beyond

3. National Freelance Labor Pool

• Identify, recruit, hire, onboard, and train freelance AV technicians across BDP's national markets, ensuring skills and expertise match client needs and expectations.

• Track and maintain freelancer pools to ensure supply meets demand across all markets.

• Maintain oversight of national technical AV labor pools in major markets that serve BDP's national clients.

• Own the BDP contractor database used to book technicians for events, ensuring information is accurate, complete, and current.

• Maintain and update freelancer and contractor HR files in BDP's payroll software, ensuring all paperwork is complete and up to date.

• Review and approve freelancer and contractor timesheets.

• Communicate with technicians via text, email, and phone, ensuring they have up-to-date information on their shifts.

4. Business Development & Growth Strategy

• Build and execute a strategy to grow BDP's labor staffing business by winning additional national clients.

• Partner with the CEO and COO to develop a framework and capabilities presentation that showcases BDP's labor staffing services to prospective clients.

• Identify new markets and opportunities to extend BDP's technical AV labor staffing capabilities beyond the current client base, prioritizing markets where BDP already has established labor pools.

• Track business development pipeline and report on progress against growth goals.

Desired Traits for Success in This Role

• Demonstrated people management skills, with the ability to set expectations, coach performance, and build a high-functioning team.

• Sound customer service, communication, reasoning, and relationship management skills.

• Ability to identify efficiencies or automations that will improve overall performance of labor scheduling team and processes.

• Fosters trust and open, honest communication with the internal team and partners.

• Strong organizational skills, time management skills, and attention to detail.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills.

• Ability to meet tight deadlines and work well under pressure.

• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and projects simultaneously.

• Ability to work independently without supervision, be self-directed, and demonstrate initiative.

• Comfortable learning and using new software.

• Flexibility in working hours to support business needs, including the ability to work occasional long hours based on project requirements.

• Commitment to on-call responsibilities, including the willingness to carry a cell phone for 24/7 access.

Additional Responsibilities

The cornerstone of our approach is teamwork. This position demonstrates commitment to teamwork by actively engaging in collaborative efforts and supporting team members in the completion of any additional tasks or responsibilities as assigned.

Key Interfaces

Dynamic collaboration with both BDP leadership and the Operations Team is critical to delivering well-executed events.

The key interface with BDP leadership involves providing regular updates on labor staffing performance, client relationships, and business development progress.

The key interface with the Operations Team centers on coordinating labor resources, working closely together to ensure skilled labor essential to successful event execution is efficiently sourced from the operations labor pool.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed above are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. The ability to lead a team and work independently, without the need for micromanagement, is a vital component of this position.

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While some absences may be protected by federal, state, and/or local laws, regular attendance is an essential function of the job.

Education and/or Experience

• Minimum of 7 years of live event AV experience.

• Background experience in live event AV operations required.

• Familiarity with corporate event AV positions and responsibilities is required.

• Client relations experience required.

• Prior experience managing or supervising a team preferred.

Computer Skills

Office 365 proficiency required.

Familiarity with Slack desired but not required.

IntelliEvent Lightning proficiency desired but not required.

Benefits

Included in our benefits package are full health and dental coverage, an appealing Paid Time Off (PTO) benefit, a hybrid remote/in-person workplace, ongoing professional development opportunities, and a Simple IRA retirement plan with company match.

Physical Demands

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. This job can involve long hours sitting (or standing) at a desk, standing, walking, and using a computer. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Limitations and Disclaimer

The above job description is meant to describe the general nature and level of work performed; it is not intended as an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and required skills for the position. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform other duties requested by their supervisor in compliance with Federal and State laws. Requirements are representative of minimum levels of knowledge, skills, and/or abilities necessary to perform each duty proficiently. Continued employment remains on an "at-will" basis.

Desired Traits for Success in This Role

• Demonstrated people management skills, with the ability to set expectations, coach performance, and build a high-functioning team.

• Sound customer service, communication, reasoning, and relationship management skills.

• Ability to identify efficiencies or automations that will improve overall performance of labor scheduling team and processes.

• Fosters trust and open, honest communication with the internal team and partners.

• Strong organizational skills, time management skills, and attention to detail.

• Strong verbal and written communication skills.

• Ability to meet tight deadlines and work well under pressure.

• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and projects simultaneously.

• Ability to work independently without supervision, be self-directed, and demonstrate initiative.

• Comfortable learning and using new software.

• Flexibility in working hours to support business needs, including the ability to work occasional long hours based on project requirements.

• Commitment to on-call responsibilities, including the willingness to carry a cell phone for 24/7 access.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed above are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. The ability to lead a team and work independently, without the need for micromanagement, is a vital component of this position.

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While some absences may be protected by federal, state, and/or local laws, regular attendance is an essential function of the job.

Education and/or Experience

• Minimum of 7 years of live event AV experience.

• Background experience in live event AV operations required.

• Familiarity with corporate event AV positions and responsibilities is required.

• Client relations experience required.

• Prior experience managing or supervising a team preferred.

Computer Skills

Office 365 proficiency required.

Familiarity with Slack desired but not required.

IntelliEvent Lightning proficiency desired but not required.