Hey everyone, I'm in a bit of a pinch. I was contacted by a friend of mine who is a student activities director at the University of Scranton. They are putting on a swing dance on February 2nd with a full 20 piece swing band from the Jazz at Lincoln Center. I am being hired to do sound for the gig. I have the equipment to do it, and the music program at the University has an abundance of funds. They asked me to give them a quote soon, but while i've done a lot of sound, none of it has been rental, so i'm a bit unsure how much to charge. It's an all day affair, and will be quite a lot of work, but I don't want to undercharge. Any insight would be great. Thanks!
At least $500
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
hmmm, OK. Is there a general $ per hour rule used?
Like anything else it depends..on the equipment, your abilities, the length of time etc. But if it's all day and you also providing the equipment I would think $500 would be about the minimum.
I do have some people in the business unfortunately I have no way of getting in touch with them.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
The few times we've rented a PA, it ran about $150 for the day. That's just the equipment obviously. If you're going to cart it around and do the set up and run the sound, then you either want to go hourly for your time or use one figure for the whole thing. Sound people around here charge anything from $50 to $200 an hour, so you can see there's a wide range. When you say "all day," what does that mean, literally? You want to take everything into account from the moment you start putting things together to be packed into your transport until you've gotten everything unloaded. If you're doing it all by yourself, you probably should charge about $100 an hour.
Wouldn't hurt to make some calls in your area, just to see what others are doing.
Hope this helps.
Peace
Yeah I talked to one older guy who has been renting sound around here for many years, and he thought $400 was a decent figure. He said since it's a swing band, and not a rock band, I shouldn't charge quite as much, since it's not quite as much work. By all day I mean probably begin packing the car around 11 or 12 noon, get set up from 1-3, sound check at 3 or 4, I think the event is 7-10pm.
