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rockstardave 25 February 2011

I'm growing my sound-and-lights company and have an opportunity to install a small system into a local venue that's opening soon. I'm trying to determine how much to charge them for the system.

My initial thoughts are to figure this out based on 2 factors: how much the rental is, and how much i need to be paid for my work.

I know my hourly rate, but what do I charge for the actual lease of my sound system? Here's the gear going in:

(2) 2 x 15" mains
(2) 1 x 18" subs
(4) 1 x 12" monitors
(2) xti4000 amps
(2) xls2500 amps
$2000 worth of mics
$1000 worth of cables and stands

typically i hire out this system (with myself setting it up and running it) for $250-ish per night.

for an install i dont need to setup nor tear down. so i should charge less than $250 per night, right? i mean - 90% of the work is lugging the stuff around, set up, ring it out, etc etc. the only real fun part is mixing, and with an install that'd be a much larger part of the job.

insurance will run $500 per year tops, and probably much less than that.

a typical gig at this place will be 4 hours of music, with possible set change during one of the breaks

thoughts?

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Comments

SharkFM Sat, 02/26/2011 - 14:19

Personally I don't insure a damn thing (except the house cause I have to) because over your life you'll pay far more in premiums than for an actual loss.

$10,000 item??
you have to cover off depreciation
maintenance of (time, parts, fuel, expenses etc.)
ROI
You are putting up the capital so you need an ROI (return on that investment)
ROI at least xx% I would think $2,000 annually
Depreciation on goods, xx% per year (2K)
Maintenance & expenses $500?? annually

$4500 per year = $375 a month. Or low ball the monthly rental and make it back on the hourly services, like set-up or working sound, making other contacts (like advertising) etc.

An Econobox rents for what $125 a week or so.
Also look at car rentals or lease costs as comparison.

rockstardave Wed, 03/02/2011 - 08:20

thanks for thoughts.

what i ended up proposing was a $500 per month lease, minus $100 per month for advance payment. so $400 / month, plus an hourly rate for when i'm actually working.

hooray

basically it gets about $10,000 worth of stuff into the place to start, and i'll be upgrading to KW153 mains in the next few weeks so we can fly them.

also looking to get a larger board. currently using a StudioLive16; i want to get a SL24 in there, but that's big bucks which i dont have right now.

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