Lighting design rates

[numberwrong]

Hi,

 

What are the going LD rates for corporate/event work,touring rock & roll, LX design for house rigs on festival stages?

 

So far from speaking with colleagues I have found rates to fluctuate a lot even in the same sector. Was curious if there was a general consensus of what LD rates should be on here.

 

This leads me to a side question, how do people charge for things like meetings / site visits etc.

 

For example, if you had a site visit for 2 hrs and a 2 hr production meeting soon after with a few hours of travel racked up along the way would you count this as ½ a day? or a full day? (Plus expenses) or just suck it up and bill a flat rate for the whole job including LX plots/specs/renderings/paperwork/desk show file etc.

 

If so how to do work out that flat rate?

 

How many hours would you consider 'a day' in the office creating plots and paper work etc, 12 hrs? 8 hrs?

 

In my experience, as a freelancer gaining more and more senior roles, the hours I actually spend on a project can often spiral, making the higher rate hardly worth it compared with a lighting tech who just turns up, does their call and goes home. Especially considering I am paying for expensive CAD/design software and a fairly high end computer to run it, not to mention the skills and experience needed to use the software proficiently and bringing the design to life on site.

[indyld]

There are still design rates in corporate?

 

The idea of getting much in the way of pre-production and design fees seemed to be going out of fashion when I left the sector.

 

It was much more cost effective to just send a load kit out with a competent lampie and let a show happen.

 

Larger shows could still command a small amount to cover thinking about them beforehand but certainly not pay properly for time, and skills, and tools.

 

Plots etc were created to make life easier for us on site. Clients weren't that interested in paying properly for them. As a rule, one might manage to swing a day of non-site work per show if the client was feeling generous.

[sandall]

Hourly rate - for everything. Then give them a discount to soften the blow.

[Judge]

It has always taken time to sort out pre production. Back in the days when I would actually draw a plot on an A0 drafting table with Rotring and stencils then get dyeline copies made I would usually not get paid for it. As Rob says this was largely for my and my crews benefit .However these days things are that more complicated. We have to deal with house techs way in advance, find out about the house stock, patch the show, get precise plots out to the house etc. Yes, I could just rock up and patch on site and make it up on the spot - and indeed have done. But I like to get as ready as I can and this often takes a few days of prep. I charge the client an hourly rate for this. If I didnt do it then they wouldnt have a show - or they would have less time for rehearsal, or they would have to get me on site earlier, which would cost.I have never had an issue billing for this kind of thing. Of course I do have a sliding scale of rates as most of my work these days is for broke-assed circus companies and not corporates!

 

[numberwrong]

Thanks for replies,

 

Interesting that some people bill hourly, my clients would want to know the price before going ahead to make sure it worked with the budget. Hourly may work well for me with site visits and meetings though

 

My clients do appreciate lighting plots and paperwork, as mentioned corporate end-clients wont know or care about the time taken to produce a good plot but the people paying me do recognise it is necessary once a job gets to a certain size. When you have more then 4 lampys you kind of need to communicate what needs to be done effectively to work efficiently. This mean a plot and my client know this.

 

No one's put their cards on the table with rates so I'll go, My clients pay 300 - 350 per day for proper LD work. Most (not all) of this is corporate. most of the rock & roll stuff I do is lower, depends on the job.