EXPOSED
This residual catch-all is dominated by hands-on AV and broadcast equipment work: rigging projectors, screens, mics, cameras and satellite/streaming gear in hotels, arenas, houses of worship and studios, then troubleshooting when a feed drops five minutes before doors. That physical setup and live fault-finding is not something today's robotics touches, but the softer half of the job — cueing playback, running teleprompter, captioning, switching, signal routing, logging and archiving media — is exactly what automated switchers, auto-tracking cameras and AI captioning already do at usable quality. There is no license, no signature, and clients buy a working room rather than a named person, so the moat is physical presence and event-day accountability only.
Mixed — a routine tier and a judgment tier. Cable runs, truss rigging, mic placement and chasing a dead SDI line at load-in stay manual, but teleprompter operation, playback cueing, camera tracking and live captioning — a real share of your billed hours — are already handled by auto-switchers and ASR at broadcast-acceptable quality, which is what pins this at 12 rather than the 16 a pure rigger would get.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments. You work at height on ladders and lifts, in half-built ballrooms, outdoor stages in weather and cramped booths, hauling cases and terminating connectors on site — 15 rather than 18 only because a meaningful slice of the shift is spent seated at a switcher, console or edit bay in a controlled room.
No licence, no signature requirement. There is no state license for AV or broadcast equipment operation; OSHA fall-protection and occasional FCC-station or rigging/ETCP certifications may be asked for by a venue, but nothing legally requires you specifically rather than whoever the shop sends.
Some relationship component. Repeat corporate clients, worship-tech volunteers and producers do ask for the tech who already knows their room's patch panel and quirks, which is worth something above anonymous — but the contract goes to the AV company or the house, and the booking survives you being swapped out.
Meaningful discretion. When the satellite feed drops or a wireless channel starts hitting interference mid-event, you decide in seconds whether to switch to backup, re-patch or ride it out with no one to escalate to — but the rest is show files, run-of-show sheets and manufacturer spec, so the discretion is fast rather than consequential.
Has AI actually changed your work?