Manchester & the North West
AV crew in Manchester, without the ring-round.
Vetted freelance sound, lighting and video technicians across the North West — offer your rate, get an answer, and skip the invoice chase.
- Photo-ID-checked profiles
- Day rate agreed before you book
- Automatic invoices after the show
- No agency markup
Crew for events at venues like
- Manchester Central
- AO Arena
- The Lowry
- Depot Mayfield
- Victoria Warehouse
- MediaCity
- City-centre hotels
How companies book crew on AVCrew
Post your event
Add the venue, dates and call times, and list the roles you need — from a single sound engineer to a full show crew across multiple days.
Send offers at your rate
Search vetted profiles, check availability, and send offers with the day rate attached. Crew accept or counter, so the fee is agreed before anyone is booked.
Everything else is automatic
Confirmed crew get their call sheets, you can track arrivals on show day, and invoices are generated automatically after the event. No chasing paperwork.
Why production teams use AVCrew
Vetted, photo-ID-checked crew
Every freelancer passes a photo-ID identity check before they can be booked, and profiles display qualification and insurance documents — with badges once they're checked and verified.
Rates agreed up front
You set the fee when you send the offer. Crew accept or counter — nobody starts a job without the money agreed in writing.
Automatic invoicing
After the event, invoices arrive without anyone having to raise them. Expenses and overtime follow the same approval trail, so there are no surprise totals.
Compliance in one place
PLI, qualifications and RAMS live on the platform, so you can show a venue exactly who is working and what covers them.
Kit hire from your crew
Many freelancers list their own kit — radio mics, mixers, monitors and more. Hire it as part of the booking instead of running a second procurement.
One place to talk
Direct messages and per-event chat keep you, your team and the crew in one thread — not scattered across texts, emails and three WhatsApp groups.
Crew for the North West's event scene
Between exhibitions at Manchester Central, corporate work around MediaCity, warehouse shows at Depot Mayfield and everything the AO Arena brings through town, Manchester's crew diaries fill fast. AVCrew gives you a live picture of who is actually free — vetted freelancers with their disciplines, documents and availability in one place, instead of a phone list that's out of date by March.
Crew on AVCrew set their own travel radius, so a Manchester search can just as easily surface freelancers happy to work Liverpool, Leeds or Sheffield. That matters when you're staffing a tour stop or a multi-city roadshow: one search shows you who will genuinely travel, what they charge is agreed up front, and the invoices arrive automatically once the shows are done.
Every discipline on one platform
Search by the roles you actually staff — not a generic 'AV technician' bucket.
- Audio engineers
- Lighting technicians
- Video & vision engineers
- LED wall technicians
- Camera operators
- Riggers
- Stage managers
- Crew chiefs
- Broadcast engineers
- IT & networking
- Teleprompter operators
- Power & generator
- Staging & set
- Local crew
- General AV technicians
Frequently asked questions
Do you have crew outside Manchester itself?
Searches aren't limited to the city. Crew set their own travel radius, so freelancers who've chosen to cover Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield or the wider North West appear wherever your venue matches — you see people willing to work your actual postcode, not a city-centre list.
Can I find crew at short notice?
You can search by your event dates and see who is available before you send a single offer. Offers carry response deadlines, so when time is tight you know quickly whether to move to your next choice.
How do rates work?
You attach a day rate to each offer and the freelancer accepts or counters. The agreed rate is what gets invoiced — AVCrew adds no commission and no agency markup on top.
Are the crew vetted?
Every freelancer passes a photo-ID identity check before they can be booked, and profiles carry qualification documents, public liability insurance and references from previous work.
Can I book local crew for load-ins and de-rigs?
Yes — local crew and stagehands are a discipline on the platform alongside engineers and operators, so you can staff the push as well as the show.
What about kit?
Many freelancers list their own kit for hire as part of a booking — handy when a job needs a few extra radio mics or a spare console rather than a full dry-hire order.
Book your next crew the easy way
Create a free account, post your event and see available, vetted crew today. You only ever pay the rate you agreed.
Work in AV yourself? See how AVCrew works for freelancers