ghance Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Hi, This will come as no surprise to any small PA company.. Seems the bigger the investment for smaller the return. For example a Yamaha M7CL 48. Touring package bought new when they were in vogue. £15k investment. Goes out once a week for £100 a day. Meanwhile, 4x plastic powered speakers. £500 investment (that's for all 4 units). Goes out once a week for £100.... Go figure! Didn't start a PA rental company for the money.. Was a passion that turned into a job, so not grumbling about income. But does seem that there is huge disparity between buying nice kit vs the return on budget boxes. So gets me thinking.. What nice bits of PA kit still get good return? Midas Pro2? Radio mics? Thoughts welcome Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Well, according to the google ad that appeared at the bottom of this page, we should be investing in shipping containers, apparently there's a 12% yield possible. The other thing to take into account is resale value. If you had to sell your M7CL48 today, what sort of price would it achieve, as a percentage of the purchase price? Meanwhile, what's the percentage like for the cheap plastic boxes, assuming the DJs haven't let the smoke out? I've tended to find that anything we buy because it's rider friendly isn't a good investment. Consoles are particularly bad, but anything that seems like flavour of the month now probably won't be in a couple of years time. Unless you have jobs lined up that will cover most of the purchase price, it doesn't seem likely that they will ever earn their keep. Then of course there are the things that tend not to be line items on invoices, but need bought anyway. Distro, cabling, flightcases etc. etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 That said there are instances where kit can appreciate - speaking to a chap I know, he was having to deal with the fact the secondhand value of d&b Q7 had gone up - his accountant could quite handle it by all accounts... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Didn't start a PA rental company for the money.. Was a passion that turned into a job...There it seems to me lies the rub. Too much competition from other hobbyists continually entering the market for non-market reasons. I do it myself and lend out my little projector when others charge £60 a day so this isn't my cynicism, just realistic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghance Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 Thanks for replies.. keep them coming. Good point about depreciation, but invariably comes down to procurement cost. Consoles: We've done well with LS9's & M7CL's being cross market: Theatre, corporate, music. The PM5 aside the Yamaha consoles might not be as sexy as say Midas, Digico, Digidesign. But providing you pickup the Yamaha's as the right price, they do well, and they've been solid & virtually trouble free. I've got beef with the QL1 price point. Really nice desk, would love to swap out my LS9's for these, but at £4K + VAT the ROI is going to be bad - I'm better off hanging onto the . By comparison you could pickup a pair of Soundcraft Expressions for less money or spend a little more & get into a Midas Pro 1. Unless I had say a secure 10 week hire for a QL1 I can't see it making more money than any other entry level digi console. Speaker: Possibly worse than consoles. A particularly bad example is paying £3K for a rider friendly box that goes out for £30 a day. Radio mics: Seem to do okay on these.. Seem to maintain a good rental price, flexible in as much as you can start with a small number and build up quantity as needed, depreciation reasonable, don't take up much space in the warehouse. Whats been your experience? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 We considered buying some D&B Q recently, and the prices seemed unreasonable for what is basically a 10yr old box. Not sure that this is reflected in the rental prices that they achieve anyway. Certainly near us there are plenty of people who stock them which means rental rates are rock bottom. Too much competition from other hobbyists continually entering the market for non-market reasons. We've had problems with that too. I don't feel too aggrieved by hobbyists doing small band night style gigs in the village hall, but we have found people willing to take on major shows in 2000+ capacity venues, hiring in kit to cover it but not charging for their time, transport, etc. Very hard to compete with, even if they don't do a particularly stellar job. The only hope is that they get fed up of it, they usually do eventually. Radio mics: Seem to do okay on these.. Seem to maintain a good rental price, flexible in as much as you can start with a small number and build up quantity as needed, depreciation reasonable, don't take up much space in the warehouse. The hidden cost of radio mics is the consumables, things like replacement headsets and the fresh set of batteries that they go out with. We've found them to be OK, although demand is very seasonal, we could have twice as many in stock for a handful of weeks in the run up to Christmas and school show season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 The hidden cost of radio mics is the consumables, …….. the fresh set of batteries that they go out with. We charge for batteries - EasyJob is set to add them to the quote when you add a radio mic. Not a massive cost per job to the client, but as you say rightly adds up. We've yet to have a client quibble with this either. If they do, I'll happily let them go an buy their own batteries… But as we don't charge a massive mark up, it's cheaper for the client than sourcing their own, but it means we're not running a loss on that line. General ROI on Audio kit is why I'm really not bothered about about owning much more than we do. There's so much of it sloshing around, if I need it, I can sub hire it in and still make money on the job. There's also not much point buying the basic flat screens and projectors too - they've become commodity items that pretty much every Tom Dick and Harry has, and will her out for 2p. I'd rather buy expensive AV kit solves those troublesome issues, or is used infrequently by regular companies, but means those that have it can generate regular work from it, and that has a good ROI and generates solid cash-flow for the business. Investing in our 3.9mm LED screen has been a great decision for the business. Certainly not cheap, but it's generated a great ROI in the 6 months we've had it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Speaker: Possibly worse than consoles. A particularly bad example is paying £3K for a rider friendly box that goes out for £30 a day. To counter that argument we have some 12 year old brown boxes that have been busy all that time that I could still sell for around £200 less than I bought them for! It is not just the rental but residual value that is important. Similarly Yamaha M7, 6 years old has made its money back three times over and is still worth maybe £5000. In 4 years the X32 may well cost you to dispose of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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