Scenic painter rates of pay

[danielteiiley2728]

Hello Blue roomers.

 

Firstly my apologies if this is in the wrong section (admin, please move the topic to the appropriate section if required)

 

Does anyone have a rate card for scenic artists or set painters that are fairly standard they could share? I'm not trying to undercut anyone as I am looking to hire someone for a production later in the year.

 

The venue size is 640 and it would be a 5-week run.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[gareth]

Unlike in TV/film, I'm not aware of specific rate cards for scenic artists in theatre. BECTU might have something relevant, it's worth a look on their website (although it might be members-only) - but I doubt you'd find anything specific. Scenic artists are highly-skilled individuals, so I'd expect they'd be looking for rates which reflect that. As I'm guessing you'd be looking for a self-employed person rather than an employee, it's kind of down to them to set their daily rate in negotiation with you - so having a chat with one or two, outlining the size of the job (and I don't quite see what relevance the audience capacity and length of run have on this!), and asking them what they'd be looking to charge you.

[ImagineerTom]

Equity and TMA have different pay scales for many jobs based on the venue capacity and length of run. I assume that’s why the OP mentioned it?

[gareth]

Equity and TMA have different pay scales for many jobs based on the venue capacity and length of run. I assume that's why the OP mentioned it?

 

For scenic painters?

[ImagineerTom]

I don’t know specifically- I was just pointing out that in regional venues those are criteria that affect the rate for performers, directors and various technical levels so it’s not unreasonable for the OP to include the info since it does impact pay scales for many jobs in regional houses.

[gareth]

Having spent a huge chunk of my not-insignificant working life in regional theatres, I don't recall ever encountering a scenario where the daily rate for a scenic painter, or any comparable technical role, has been determined in part on the basis of venue capacity or the number of weeks that a production runs for. A set of a given size requires the same amount of painting regardless of the number of people who'll be looking at it every night, or how many performances it'll be on stage for.

[ImagineerTom]

Just because you've never heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Here for example is the summary card of Equity scale for 2016-2019 (stage management) which details the pay scale for performances dependent on the size of venue - the amount of work done in the rehearsal room for a show that plays a 1501 seat venue is exactly the same as the amount of work done for the same show going into a 1499 seat venue yet as you can see there's different pay scale. There's about 50 different union and trade association deals covering performers, creatives, creators & management across the myriad of different performance networks - many of them have different pay scales dependent on the size of the venue and number of intended performances so, as I have said twice now, it's not unreasonable or odd that the OP included that information in their original request as in many sectors of this industry that is relevant information. Edited February 23, 2021 by ImagineerTom

[DrV]

I've been interested in this thread as a complete outsider but I can see why the rate would depend on the size and length of show. I guess it's a sort of royalty paid for the artist's work??

[J Pearce]

There's also often an acknowledgement in the industry of helping the smaller places out. I wouldn't expect the same rates from a small studio theatre as I would from the National Theatre, even if the hours worked came to the same.

[gareth]

Edit: Yeah. OK. Edited February 24, 2021 by gareth