Rental advice

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Gregory East
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Rental advice

#1 Post by Gregory East »

I figure on doing big shows with my rig as and when I am fully geared up but for now I have a couple of bites on renting parts of it. Getting some dollars coming in to pay for the SAC system is where I'm at. It's a long road to save for it out of regular income.

I know sooner or later something is going to come back broken or not come back at all, cables get munted, yada yada. It gives me the willys to send out gear piecemeal. What's rules of thumb for renting gear so it's worth doing it? I've looked a few NZ websites and it's POA on stuff bigger than a couple of mackies on sticks with a sub.

More background:

One of the bites is the mate who I would be sending out on full rig gigs so he's good to go at cheap rates. It's a 2 piece electronica band, all the local DJ's will be coming along. It'll be a great marketing opportunity. I'll be there keeping an eye on the gear, so I could almost do it for free.

The other one is local show production husband and wife team. They do a lot of big shows where the full rig could get very well used. "Stars in your Eyes" competition sorts of things and musical theatre with the accent on the music. Usually with quite a big ensemble so I'm way short of gear to mount the whole shebang with them.

They use a local pro company for their sound and light. Lights are very good, sound is not, just blimmin' loud. They charge "top dollar" but nobody can actually tell me what that is. Go figure. The BFM rig kicks ass for sound quality. I don't want to undercut the local guys just to get the work, if I even knew what their rates were.

I think hubby and wifey want to piecemeal the sound gear between me and the pro guys, but if they use the other guys' sound guy I would almost expect it to go badly. I'm thinking I should insist on providing soundman and they can rent snake and mics and whatever vocal processing they need above my own gear.

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LelandCrooks
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Re: Rental advice

#2 Post by LelandCrooks »

10% of the cost of the gear is what I've read on PSW. In my construction equipment business if we can't pay for a small piece in a couple of years it's a no go. Big stuff 3 years. Estimate how many rentals you think you'll do over the next couple of years and price accordingly.
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Gregory East
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Re: Rental advice

#3 Post by Gregory East »

Sounds reasonable. It's all "big stuff" to me unless you're talking a cheap mic vs an XTi amp. To justify expanding into SAC it needs to earn it's keep and there aren't a whole lot of potential gigs for the whole system.

Being that my system punches so far over it's capital value should I work off "equivalent retail value"? I'm always getting asked what I paid for the system. I got a bargain on it but I took an enormous risk in doing so as it was sight unseen and homebuilt. That justifies any profit I might make over time.

For those in the know, I could be accused of being a rippoff at the same time I was undercutting the established sound providers if they are working on similar 10% / 3 year payback period with their branded gear.

Gregory East
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Re: Rental advice

#4 Post by Gregory East »

The only figure I have is 8k for a 3 night show where there were a lot of dress rehearsals and a big lightshow as well. So lots of manhours went into it as well as the gear. This was just prior BFM, I went to the show and had pure guestimated at 10k by looking at the huge stack of ill deployed speakers and the lightshow. So 8k seems reasonable for the amount of work done.

Supposedly the 8K was after a discount tradeoff for sponsorship advertising. The show only broke even so they are a bit sour over paying the big bucks for not very good sound. Enter BFM!

"Ballpark equivalent" pair of JBL high power dual 18's which equate to my 4 Titans, retail here about 8,000 NZ dollars. Bill lists T48 at US$1999 equivalnent retail apiece and music gear here is + 50% + exchange difference so I dunno what's up with that. The subs are pretty close in overall SPL.

Without getting into a debate on performance and price of T48 there's no way I'm getting $NZ 800 a night just for the 4 T48 bins. Add amps and the rest, how's 2000 a throw? That's beyond the market for sure. Seems I have a decent ballpark guess programme inbuilt but I'm a bit lost here. I'm not a businessman. 10% per hire on the big jobs seems steeeeep.

Is this where I have to do a 3yr analysis / projection to divi up the hires to repay the capital? That's tough to do with no real idea the number of shows I can get in a year.

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Tom Smit
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Re: Rental advice

#5 Post by Tom Smit »

LelandCrooks wrote:10% of the cost of the gear is what I've read on PSW.
Gregory asked the same question that I was wondering about, ie, equivalent retail value? I've thought about making a small rig (4-DR200, 4-T39) and renting out so that I could bring in a little extra cash.
TomS

gdougherty
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Re: Rental advice

#6 Post by gdougherty »

You can ask whatever you want, question is not so much what it's worth but what would people rent otherwise in the same range if you want to get it rented out. While quality is not on par, I'd price on par with some MI tops and subs for most rentals.

wounded horse
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Re: Rental advice

#7 Post by wounded horse »

While I get more T39s built, we have a function - Lincoln, UK - in a week and we're hiring in a rig:

5000Watts worth of sub amps + 4 2X18

2000 Watt tops amps + line arrays

EQ/DSP

24 channel desk

4 X floor monitor

Snakes, 8 X mic, stands, general other stuff.

Playing to 500 heads dinner dance, big place, charity do £50 a head ====

£500 this year including 2 men, 1 to do the sound. We used it last year and it was fine, no big criticisms; They even put the subs together, hallelujah. I thought that was cheap.

Greg Plouvier
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Re: Rental advice

#8 Post by Greg Plouvier »

If you're just talking walk-in rentals of pieces of gear 10% is fine. However if you're renting systems, stacks n racks and the like 10% is too high as you mentioned. You can really only get what someone is willing to pay in your market. Here there are guys(I call em whores) taking out club rigs with tech for $150/night. I won't even mess with that crap. $500 is my minimum for a small on sticks with 1 sub kinda thing. Unless your rental systems are completely idiot-proof you'll end up setting it up onsite anyway which you really should be getting paid for too...not to mention arm rolled cables when it comes back in.
Last edited by Greg Plouvier on Sat Sep 24, 2011 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jon Barnhardt
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Re: Rental advice

#9 Post by Jon Barnhardt »

Greg Plouvier wrote:If you're just talking walk-in rentals of pieces of gear 10% is fine. However if you're renting systems, stacks n racks and the like 10% is too high as you mentioned. You can really only get what someone is willing to pay in your market. Here there are guys(I call em whores) taking out club rigs with tech for $150/night. I won't even mess that crap. $500 is my minimum for a small on sticks with 1 sub kinda thing. Unless your rental systems are completely idiot-proof you'll end up setting it up onsite anyway which you really should be getting paid for too...not to mention arm rolled cables when it comes back in.
+1000

jjohnson
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Re: Rental advice

#10 Post by jjohnson »

When I was working in the music store we would rent but it usually ended up being at 15-20% of the sell price of the speakers/amp if they were looking for a large weekend rental, we'd do the $50/weekend rental on the all-in-one Fender or Messenger system. We would also allow the rent to apply the rent from the first time to the purchase of the same equipment. We'd make sure that they had everything including cables, mic stands, speaker stands, etc for the price. And we would end going out for setup/troubleshooting on about 25% of our calls.

Can you tell our manager wasn't really into renting out the larger stuff? :?
Built: 2 T48 24" 3015LF, 2 DR250 2510
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jcmbowman
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Re: Rental advice

#11 Post by jcmbowman »

A good starting point for a ballpark estimate is 10% of the -replacement- value. So for DIY boxes calculate the cost of materials, PLUS the time it took to build (assuming that an experienced woodworker was doing the work).

But... you need to factor in what other people around you are charging for similar setups. And then there are lots of other variables:
1) who is responsible for transporting the equipment?
2) who will set up the equipment?
3) will you provide setup support if they set up themselves?
4) Will you provide an on-site tech to act as systems engineer? (Factor in a day rate for this person.)
5) What is the timing for the pickup/dropoff? Non-standard hours will have an impact.
6) Is there any kind of deposit? (either a deposit to secure the rental agreement, or a deposit to cover the possibility of damage...)

All that said, It's still dependent on what the market will bear, and more specifically what the client is willing/capable of paying.

Regardless, do yourself and everyone else in your area a favor and don't take free/low-ball jobs. If you do a $500 job for exposure plus gas money, all it means is that next time that client is going to expect that kind of deal. I mean, I'll make exceptions for certain close personal friends, or if there's a particular client I've been trying to land for a while, but I always make it VERY clear up front what my rates would normally be, and that their discount is strictly confidential.
Low End Junkie for over 20 years.

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unkycraig
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Re: Rental advice

#12 Post by unkycraig »

I was going to ask what people charge to rent out these small BFM systems for a night, weekend? Mostly this is our personal practice/performance PA. People want to rent our rig out. We are just on the edge of the SF Bay area.

I read the threads about this topic. The 10% 3/year and all that.

I looked around at the field of offers that are out there. It seems for a night/weekend $200 for two powered mids and some monitors, cables, satellite stands, and a cheap little mixer is the low going rate.

Really curious about what everyone charges for the various size rigs? Also what to pay the humans that run it, if it is a permanent install that different people might be running each night ---no load in, just sound check and performance. $15 an hour is minimum wage here. Or $50 cash for four hours of staring at a sound check.
What might a monthly or per use fee be for a permanent install for a small bar?

I am just a 2.2.2 system 2 sub, 2 main, two monitors, six mics+stands, 2 DI, drive rack stuff 2x700watts amps, 12 channel A&H board.
Eventually 4.4.4 is coming, double mics, 24 channel Soundcraft board, double drive rack stuff.

I didn't build these to rent out it just seems to be the next step. I need to build more rigs.

*****so to hyperfocus the responses, trying to focus on the permanent install negotiation ammo. Trying to make it easy for a small bar to use our rig, and finding someone that loves music enough to get paid to run stuff when we are not there.
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In the wings: DR250(probably not), 4 Wedgehorn 10s(probably), 2 More SLA 4x6s,

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Tom Smit
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Re: Rental advice

#13 Post by Tom Smit »

Oops, you did it again, you played in the wrong part. LOL (slight change in words from the song by Brittany).

Craig, copy your post here, start a new thread and paste it there.
TomS

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Bill Fitzmaurice
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Re: Rental advice

#14 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Image

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J_Dunavin
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Re: Rental advice

#15 Post by J_Dunavin »

:lol:
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

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