Original Beef Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 I was talking to a tech the other day and asked him how much he charges for warehouse / prep days as I have just started doing some for a company for the first time. I knock about £30 off my day rate but he said he charges 50% of his day rate and I wondered if I was over charging and if there is a standard for this? Welcome your opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pritch Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Is your client happy to pay your rate for the work? If so, then I'd say you're not overcharging! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ynot Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Is your client happy to pay your rate for the work? If so, then I'd say you're not overcharging!It may also depend on what YOUR day rate is compared to your mate's.... If he normally goes out for £200 a day but you charge a standard £120, then he's STILL getting paid more than you based on what you've stated above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Personally, I don't see why a day in a warehouse should cost less than a day on site. It's still a day's work - a day on which you're not available to any other client - and the work can be just as hard if you're prepping kit and loading wagons as it would if you were on site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmaudio Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Personally, I don't see why a day in a warehouse should cost less than a day on site. Basic economics? The supply and demand for site days, which usually occur on or around the weekend, are almost certainly going to be different for warehouse days, which tend to occur mid-week. Certainly for mid sized rental companies doing the small - mid scale festival circuit, this is the case. Generally, engineers get more work on the weekends - So you can charge your standard rate as the demand is there. However, mid week there are fewer "engineer days" being dished out, so rather than spending a day earning no money, your happy to drop your standard rate to gain that extra days work de-prepping last weekends kit, and getting it ready for the following weekend. Certainly, if your being offered an engineer day AND a warehouse day, then take the one thats going to prove most lucrative! Cheers, Jamie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xllx Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 The short answer is it varies! I used to run a warehouse for a lighting company, and there were a multitude of different rates... If a tour crew were called in to prep everything from scratch, the project manager would negotiate the rate, often it was along the lines of "I'm offering you two months of site rate, but in return I want 5 days at half rate to prep the kit". The crew could then in effect make a decision based on the total price of the job. I believe some of the rock and roll companies used to make a weeks FREE warehouse work part of the deal, but that wasn't really our market! For a corporate show where most of the kit was prepped by the warehouse staff then sometimes the dimmer man or desk op would come in for a day, to patch desk/racks do a bit of paperwork etc usually at normal site rate but with no pd's or travel, sometimes with a £20 or £30 reduction in day rate, on the principle that it would be a relatively simple short day. Regular freelance warehouse staff had an hourly rate which worked out at something like half the site day rate for a 10-6 day, obviously going up if we did a long day. Some of the site crew used to be happy to come in for warehouse days at a much reduced day rate if they had nothing else booked. On the principle that some money was better than none sitting at home watching daytime tv! They also tended to pick up more lucrative site work because they could pop into the office and speak to the project managers/LDs about forthcoming shows and get themselves booked up that way. The fact that you are doing the work for the rate you are charging suggests that the company is happy with your rate. They will soon ask you to drop it if you have pitched it too high! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 site days, which usually occur on or around the weekend Not in my experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueShift Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 I'm with xllx, it does all vary. As a freelancer who works with a variety of companies, each one has its own policies about what it is typically willing to charge for a prep day. Generally speaking though, I generally do prep days for around 50-75% of the site rate assuming that all expenses are paid and the hours are short. Yes it is still a days work, but its on average less hours, less stress and less responsibility that on site. Not to mention that since a lot of my work is all over the world, warehouse days tend to be closer to home too. Also, given the lower rate and nature of the work, I would often have an understanding with the client that there may be times when I couldn't or wouldn't do as many prep days because I had other jobs booked instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smiffy Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 [rant] It never ceases to amaze me how many of you cannot wait to charge your service out to people for less money. A daily rate is a daily rate. Some days you're going to do 18 hours, some days you might do 18 minutes. It all averages out over time with a client. Whether you are in a warehouse or at a gig, you are being paid for your expertise and services provided. These services are more or less the same whether in a warehouse or on a site. If you are out on a job, you are not able to work for anyone else. Charge your rate. These companies are not going to be queuing up to give you cash when you most need it - you are not a charity - your daily rate is what you charge for A DAY OF WORK. Charge it, wherever that may be. [/rant] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevieR Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Sorry, Smiffy, but I disagree. As a manager from a hire company, I would say that the skills and knowledge level required for warehouse work is lower than for on-site, engineering work. As such, I have a much larger pool of potential freelancers that I could use for that - with a variety of rates. I am not therefore going to use a tech that charges £180-£200 for work in the warehouse - which is not billed to the end customer. Also, a 'day' in the warehouse is more likely to be a 7 to 8 hour shift - not a full day. I take the same approach to travel days and would not expect the tech to charge a full day's rate. If they try that they will often not get the job. If a freelance tech can keep themselves busy with on-site work at full rate then fine and well done to them. But if they need to fill in the 'quieter times' they need to be prepared to adjust their pricing for the role at hand. Going back to original OP's question... Freelancers need to remember that they are now 'in business' and need to treat what they do in this way. You must learn to negotiate and agree pricing for each job that makes you a decent income without losing business. At the same time, you must be prepared to turn down work if you cannot agree what to you is an acceptable rate for the services required. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 We generally don't have people in to do prep, as most of our work is prep'd by us, so it's not really an issue the the company has had to deal with. Personally though if I was to be working as a self employed Engineer/tech, then I would vary my day rate. My argument is that is based on the level of responsibility and the requirements of the day. Warehouse work is generally 9-5. You hardly ever get show days that short. Also the working conditions are likely to be less arduous. Ultimately that's the joy of the industry - people are able to set their own rates and decide what and when they charge - the open market. Some of the best guys I know are the most reasonably priced too - not cheap. Some of the laziest non team players charge the most. But then business wise, we book the best person for the job, from our pool of people we know, trust and enjoy working with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 In what way is 8 hours not a full day?! It might be shorter than some site days, but it's definitely a full working day. And there seems to be a common opinion that just because work isn't as taxing or difficult as perhaps a day on site might be, it should be paid at a lower rate. That's rubbish. If that was the case, some corporate and television work - involving, as it does, simply being around to babysit equipment, meaning that if you have a day where everything goes swimmingly and nothing breaks down you might do virtually nothing other than power up at the beginning of the day and switch off at the end - would pay next to nothing for a day's work, whereas in reality it's very much the opposite. No, a day's work is a day's work - what a client is (or should be) paying for is your time and expertise - whether they choose to exploit that expertise to the max for twelve hours or simply have you push boxes up a ramp into a wagon until 5pm is immaterial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I would say that the skills and knowledge level required for warehouse work is lower than for on-site, engineering work.No, a day's work is a day's work - what a client is (or should be) paying for is your time and expertise - whether they choose to exploit that expertise to the max for twelve hours or simply have you push boxes up a ramp into a wagon until 5pm is immaterial. I suspect that's the crux of the matter - labelling cable, packing boxes and wheeling them onto the truck really doesn't require all that much expertise, and from the point of view of the client why should they pay the same rate as they would pay someone on-site with a hell of a lot more responsibility, and who needs to have a hell of a lot more expertise? It's a bit like expecting Tesco to pay a check-out person the same salary as a large software house would pay a developer, just because said check-out person has a degree in Computer Science. By all means feel free to charge the same rate as you would on-site, but you'll probably find a lot of clients unwilling to pay that and you thus losing out on a lot of work. Myself - I don't like the idea of having a one-size-fits-all rate, and price my services per job depending on factors such as the nature of the job, who the client is and what else I could be doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Myself - I don't like the idea of having a one-size-fits-all rate, and price my services per job depending on factors such as the nature of the job, who the client is and what else I could be doing. Plus, you could let the client pay a shelf stacker for your tour prep OR you could go in yourself and actually make sure the first leg goes in properly. The danger with being inflexible on your prep rate is that you don't get to do the prep. No good moaning that the Spansets are at the bottom of the last box off the truck then, eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son of lx dad Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I suspect that's the crux of the matter - labelling cable, packing boxes and wheeling them onto the truck really doesn't require all that much expertise. I am totally with Smiffy and (for once) Gareth on this issue. Plain fact is, a days work is a days work. I charge the same irrelevant of the location. Those of you who charge less are doing the entire industry a dis-service and need to stop doing so now. You are hurting every Self Employed Subcontactor everywhere. Futhermore I find the above attitude of Mark_s quite insulting. I believe that it takes far more skill to prep a show than it does to install it. The fitup should be the easy part, if the prep is done fully and the paperwork is complete. The ability to visualise the tasks ahead, spot potential challenges and turn those into viable solutions at the warehouse stage of a gig is a skill lampies build up over many years and prevent costly mess runs and loss of time. Believe me when I say, clients want me to prep because of my ability to present a complete system in a timely fashion - every time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.