Chris spoke to me about the audio on this I think. I looked at our other commitments on the day and we already had a full schedule with multiple clients wiping us out so I backed away from the job and declined to quote it.

On the audio side at least, I think at this point Chris fed himself to the lions.

Had I stayed in the pit I would have been asking my young friend why he needed so much d&b to do a crappy fight show…. I would have helped him by getting the box count down for a start.

Learning the commercial savy you need to know when to quote and when to walk is not easy. You need to have confidence to ask your client some hard questions….

1. Why are you talking to me?
2. Who did this gig previously?
3. What did they do wrong? (see Q1 above)
4. How much are you expecting to spend?
5. You do realise that I do not trust you and I will be having this money up front thank you very much. (you need to phrase this question in a better way!).

I only scan read your blog post but the LX budget was very amusing!

Dave… as you probably know, Chris is a top young engineer who I think has decided to stay out of the industry (Rolls Royce). Its a shame becuase give him a few years learning these hard lessons and …

PS .. finger in the air … 7-8K, sound light visuals crew and trucking.

Cheers

Mark

Thanks for taking time off from your work to comment on this, it’s very much appreciated. Feel I’ve learned more on the business side from this post than from any other mainly because it’s one I’ve been involved with.

I have to admit I wasn’t at all suprised at being turned down, because I felt the price was high too. Unfortunately I was also one of a pair working on the ‘quote’, I did audio, the other guy did Lights/Rigging because he admittedly knows more about that side. However the prices did seem high to me. I also went with what he said for numbers of crew. So first lesson learned is use own judgement more!

Interestingly I was doubling going to be doing A1, Prodn Manager and Electrician so I guess that makes the crew needs even less, further questioning why so many were needed to throw a few par bars on some truss.

Audio side I came closest I think, eventually hire company emailed later after I blogged with £1100 + VAT as a price for the D&B so a smaller K&F or similar solution would have been much lower still. Need to find out some more providers in the area methinks.

Your guess on trucking is right on the money too, it was from the three vendors (Bristol, Brighton and Maidstone) to Gatwick Airport area. Reckon the rigging and lighting could easily be done for less too. I just did some quick sums using the provider I use at uni (Panda Hire) and reckon I could have gotten Lx and Rigging in for under £2k total + VAT. Consequently I’m now seriously wondering about the guys who chose Stage Electrics. They must have been working off a dry hire sheet totally. Lesson 2 learned, because based on what I just worked out, and the only change being a substitiute of Mac500s for 700s, I make the quote about £5500 including less crew. Vertical learning curve going on, and I just decided that if I want to stand doing production management I need to get up to speed on the rigging/Lx side too.

Cheers for all the commentry. When I start my full time job with Rolls Royce in September I expect to be sent stateside at some point, so I owe you a drink or several when I’m over Hope the Russians are playing ball today.