Profile Hire Rates

[benweblight]

Just wanted to get a second opinion on this............

 

I saw some Source 4 Junior Zoom 25/50deg profiles being offered for hire at a higher rate that fixed source fours and equivalent rate to 750watt S4 25/50s....does this pricing sound right to you?

[smalljoshua]

Have a look at the various hire suppliers, if its just yours that is doing this, then it might not be right. If more than just the company you have found, chances are its the usual thing to do.

 

Josh

[Brian]

...does this pricing sound right to you?

Yes. It's not up to us to second guess the hire companies reasoning. It's their business and they live, or die, by how good they are at it.

[benweblight]

Well I'm sure they have their reasons but I just can't get my head round it (maybe im thinking too much about my budget..) and probably means I won't be considering them for this hire. No harm in asking is there?

[david.elsbury]

And so therefore your point is?

 

Oh, that *was* your point. Was that all?

 

Waste of a topic really... I agree with what Brian said.

 

:)

[ianknight]

As a hire manager and as the person that has to set prices, you will find that many companies track their prices with the 'market price' as used by the large outfits or the going hire rate in London.

 

The reasoning (from our viewpoint) is that for some of these items, we don't have the stock to cover every hire order we could receive and so from to time we need to subhire/crosshire equipment in. Depending on the company, our discount for such hires range from 15% to 50% and if our price was lower than the 'market' we lose money - by setting our price to the 'market' we make some profit per item except where the old chestnut is applied by our customer "is there any discount for it being £150 of kit?".

 

You will always find cheaper hire equipment if you shop around Ben, but consider this - when you have a rack fail, or a desk stop working which company would you really really trust to have a spare and the consideration to get it to you ASAP, the cheap company or the one that was charging the same as everyone else?

[Ynot]

Another likely explanation is the law of numbers.

If this company has shed loads of full sized S4s in their hire stock, that means they expect to be able to hire them out more regularly, and thus will generate a more regular income from each unit.

If they, however, have only a small number of S4 Juniors, on the basis that these are needed occasionally but not as often as the big brothers, then the chance of them attracting the same percentage of income is slim.

 

Hence they can justify the difference in hire costs.

[Paul J Need]

Indeed YNOT

 

also worth looking at some of the conference companies and see what they charge....... £12-20 per day.......... £36-60 per week.

 

We hire a lot of MAC 250's to this type of firm as we know they mark up our £20 per MAC Entours to £100 - they add a 20% management charge on top

 

Nice work if you can get it eh ??

[tom_the_LD]

My local company lists the junior zoom at £11 a week - cheaper than the fixed beam angles and cheaper than the 25 - 50 full sized zoom at £18 a week.

[Ynot]

My local company lists the junior zoom at £11 a week - cheaper than the fixed beam angles and cheaper than the 25 - 50 full sized zoom at £18 a week.

So maybe they fit the business model that has the company owning more juniors than full size OR they're willing to take a small loss on the smaller fixtures, maybe even letting them sit idle for longer.

 

It's down to the hire company to do the deals!!

[Young Johnstone]

hmmm... think I'll be staying with my local company- S4 adult zooms at £7-50 a week, R J KORRIGAN followspot for a very nice £30 a week... well that was my last deal anyway!!

 

Al

[andy_s]

I always thought hire prices were based on the purchase price of the item and the number of days / weeks hire the owner needs to have the kit out for to recoup the purchase price, at which point the hire price becomes mostly profit (apart of course from the cost of maintenance and re-lamping in the case of a lantern and a bit of storage cost)

 

I haven't bothered to look up the purchase price of a junior s4 to compare it with a grown up one. If anyone's bothered, they can do it themselves.

[johnhuson]

I always thought hire prices were based on the purchase price of the item and the number of days / weeks hire the owner needs to have the kit out for to recoup the purchase price, at which point the hire price becomes mostly profit (apart of course from the cost of maintenance and re-lamping in the case of a lantern and a bit of storage cost)

 

In an ideal scenario this is how it's calculated, however the reality is as others have said is that your prices need to be comparable to your competitors for a number of reasons, most of which have been mentioned above. The reality is that hire prices don't rise as quickly as purchase prices, again a number of reasons for this which are covered extensively in this thread.

 

The other flaw in these calculations is that discount is often added to the list price so the maths never tell the truth anyway. The way most hire companies decide what to purchase is when they know they have (or are very likely to have) enough work to pay for the item based on it's current market, rather than work the maths back once they've purchased it.