Why Your Office Move Will Fail Without Early AV Planning: Lessons from 20 Years in London Real Estate
- Chris Gore
- 2d
- 5 min read
In two decades of advising companies on office relocations across London, I've seen the same mistake repeated countless times. Businesses meticulously plan their lease negotiations, obsess over square footage, and debate interior design for months—only to treat audiovisual systems as an afterthought. And then they wonder why their expensive new office fails to deliver the employee experience they promised.
Chris Aqualina, Senior Director at Spring 4, puts it bluntly: "AV is often one of the things that gets really left until the last minute. Whereas coming back to what employees want—they want a good experience in the office and that's about functionality. AV is at the center of that."
He's right. But the problem runs deeper than most executives realize.
The Post-Pandemic Office Reality Check
The power dynamic has fundamentally shifted. Pre-pandemic, if your boss told you to be in the office five days a week, it wasn't up for debate. Now? Employees are doing the math: £5,000 per year to commute into London is effectively a substantial pay cut. They've experienced seamless video calls from their home offices, and they're not interested in returning to meeting rooms where the technology doesn't work.
This isn't about bean bags and slides. "Last thing you want is to walk into a meeting room and for that meeting room to not function in exactly the same way or better than you having a Zoom meeting at home," Aqualina explains. "You're spending two hours getting into London, sitting next to smelly old Greg on the tube with your nose in someone's armpit. The last thing you want is to walk into a meeting room and for that meeting room to not function."
The bar has been raised permanently. Your office technology needs to exceed the home experience, not merely match it.
The London Market Crisis Nobody's Talking About
Here's what should terrify any business leader planning an office move in London: credible reports suggest we could be two or three years away from zero vacancy. Not low vacancy. Zero.
Since Brexit in 2016, development has slowed dramatically. The pandemic added another layer of uncertainty. Then construction costs skyrocketed due to inflation. When Aqualina started in 2006, the highest rent in the City of London was about £70 per square foot—a record that had stood since the 1990s. Today, companies are paying £150 per square foot, with West End rents reaching an eye-watering £240 per square foot.
The market is bifurcating rapidly. Brand new Grade A buildings have queues of potential tenants. Everything else?
Increasingly obsolete, especially buildings that can't meet emerging environmental performance standards.
Why AV Gets Left Behind (And Why That's Catastrophic)
The typical office relocation timeline looks something like this:
2 weeks: Getting the brief
2 weeks: Sourcing buildings
3-4 weeks: Tours and evaluations
4 weeks: Lease negotiation
8 weeks: Legal process
Then the fit-out begins
By the time most companies start thinking about AV, they're already months into the process. The architect has designed the meeting rooms. The interior designer has selected finishes. The IT department has planned the network infrastructure. And AV gets bolted on as a collection of "screens on the wall."
The result? Beautiful glass meeting rooms where you can hear everything happening next door. Conference rooms where half the video calls fail. Presentation spaces where nobody can figure out how to share their screen. "You could have the most beautiful glass meeting room in the world, but if you can hear what's happening in the meeting room next door, then it's effectively useless," Aqualina notes.
The War for Talent Demands Functional Workspaces
Companies are now engaged in a fierce war for talent. If you want to attract the best people, you need to offer them the best workplace. This has driven the "flight to quality"—the rush toward best-in-class offices with premium amenities and, crucially, technology that actually works.
But here's the disconnect: while businesses understand they need quality space, they're still treating the technology that makes that space functional as an afterthought. It's like buying a Ferrari and filling it with discount fuel.
The vast majority of employees don't care about your architectural awards or your designer furniture. They want to know that when they arrive, the IT will work perfectly and they can press a button to join a video call. Because they can do that at home. Easily.
Planning Ahead: The Only Advice That Matters
Aqualina's primary advice for anyone with an upcoming office move is simple: Plan ahead. For almost anyone, that means thinking about the move at least a year out, even for small requirements.
This is where AV needs to enter the conversation—not in month nine of a twelve-month timeline, but in month one. When you're still defining what you need from your new space. When the architect is first sketching meeting room layouts. When you're deciding between Cat A and Cat B space, serviced offices, or managed offices.
Early AV planning means:
Meeting rooms designed with acoustics in mind from the start
Network infrastructure that can handle the bandwidth requirements
Power and cabling routes that don't require expensive retrofitting
Integration with your broader IT ecosystem
Proper budgeting (because AV isn't as cheap as people think)
The Flexibility Question
In a market heading toward zero vacancy, flexibility is everything. But flexibility in your lease won't help if your office technology locks you into rigid configurations.
Modern AV systems should support agile working—enabling employees to collaborate at high tables, make private calls in phone booths, and move seamlessly between different work modes. The days of eight-person meeting rooms occupied by one person making a phone call should be over, replaced by smart systems that measure actual usage and adapt accordingly.
Don't Know What You Don't Know
"You don't know what you don't know" is perhaps the most important principle in office planning. Just as businesses need specialist advice on lease negotiations and dilapidations, they need expert guidance on AV.
The consequences of getting it wrong are severe: expensive retrofits, disappointed employees, reduced productivity, and a failed return-to-office strategy. The consequences of getting it right? A workplace that genuinely competes with working from home. A technological experience that attracts and retains talent. Meeting rooms that actually get used for meetings.
Take Action Now
If you have an office move on the horizon—whether it's six months or two years away—now is the time to think about AV. Not later. Not after the architect has finished. Not when you're already in the fit-out phase. Now.
The questionnaire will help you understand your requirements, identify potential challenges, and determine whether your project needs specialist AV consultation. Because in today's market, where every detail matters in the war for talent, getting your office technology right isn't optional—it's essential.
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