In the live events and professional AV world, equipment is always on the move. From warehouse to truck, venue to venue, and sometimes country to country, rental houses are expected to deliver flawless shows with tighter margins and less time than ever.

To manage this pressure, many businesses rely on tracking technologies such as RFID. More recently, GPS-based GeoTag solutions have entered the market, offering a different approach to asset visibility.

While both technologies aim to improve control and accountability, they solve very different problems. Understanding the difference is key to choosing the right tool for modern rental operations.

What RFID Does Well

RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is widely used in warehouses and controlled environments. Tags are scanned by fixed or handheld readers when equipment passes specific checkpoints.

This makes RFID effective for:

• Stock counts and audits

• Check-in and check-out processes

• Verifying equipment at known locations

RFID answers an important question: Did this item pass this point?

For warehouse-based inventory management, that can be enough.

Where RFID Falls Short

Live events rarely follow neat, predictable workflows.

Equipment is often loaded quickly, moved by different teams, sent to last-minute jobs, or deployed to venues with little time for formal scanning. When schedules are tight, manual processes are the first thing to be skipped.

RFID also stops being useful once equipment leaves the building. Without readers in trucks, venues, or on tour, visibility disappears until the next scan.

This creates gaps:

• No insight during transport

• No visibility at venues

• No help with loss or theft recovery

What GeoTag Changes

GeoTag takes a different approach. Instead of relying on checkpoints and scanners, it uses GPS and cellular networks to report location automatically.

That means location data is captured:

• In transit

• At venues

• On tour

• In rural or remote locations

GeoTag answers a different question: Where is this item right now, and where has it been?

Location history, movement patterns, and geofence alerts provide ongoing visibility without adding work for busy teams.

This is why RFID and GeoTag are complementary technologies for world class rental and production teams.

Designed for Real-World Operations

Rental houses in 2026 face unique pressures:

• Faster turnaround times

• High staff turnover

• More last-minute bookings

• Lower resale value on some equipment categories

• Limited time for maintenance and planning

In this environment, systems that depend on perfect process discipline struggle to keep up.

GeoTag reduces reliance on manual actions. Tracking continues even when jobs change at short notice or when equipment is handled by different crews.

Inventory vs Visibility

It’s important to separate two related but different needs:

• Inventory confirms ownership and quantity

• Visibility confirms location and movement

RFID supports inventory very well.

GeoTag supports visibility across the entire lifecycle of an asset — not just when it is scanned.

For rental houses, visibility often has a direct impact on:

• Asset utilisation

• Loss prevention

• Insurance risk

• Operational confidence

Choosing the Right Tool

RFID remains useful inside warehouses and structured environments.

GeoTag is not a replacement for good inventory practice. It complements it.

The key is recognising that modern rental operations extend far beyond the warehouse door. Equipment spends much of its life in motion, not on shelves.

For businesses operating in live events, touring, and production, knowing where assets are not just where they were is becoming essential.