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shagnasty
Old Croc Joined: 30 July 2007 Location: Guildford, UK Status: Offline Points: 7685 |
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Posted: 18 April 2017 at 2:26pm |
The going rate in 1999 was £250/day + PDs, the value of money halves about every 10 years so 18 years on the fact is I have taken a large pay cut. But the real horror is morons on tour for £70/day catering no PDS and no bus. Stop at the services for a latte and sandwich 10% of your wages gone! Working with un-skilled skilled cretins is dangerous and TBH if the production can't find budget for real Techs and catering etc who wants to do that gig. If you thinking having your car/van taxed, MOT'd and insured and a place to live is up my own arse cool, then I am. But the guy that changes the oil in my van charges £80+VAT/hr so I don't think I should get any less than that. I work hard and I am good at what i do, most idiots seeping in the industry for a sixth my rate aren't worth a tenth of me, so i am actually cheaper. |
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MattStolton
Old Croc Joined: 04 September 2010 Location: Walthamstow Status: Offline Points: 4234 |
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I could have become an accountant, if money was my sole aim! I enjoy what I do, which is worth a few £k a year, but I still have mouths to feed, mortgage to pay, and I would like to be able to afford the odd nice holiday. No shame in making profit, if you do decent things with it! Just it is becoming bloody difficult to break even, thanks to perpetually getting undercut. And then it goes tits-up for the punter, who then comes to us....Some fly-by-night gets the lion's share of the money, and then disappears, and we get second level scrapeings for sorting it out. And the punter ends up paying more than would have cost them, for us to have done the job in the first place. Just a bit galling, TBH. Doing a school quote currently. We have specced a Qu-16, as they do end of term productions, so scene recall would be really beneficial, and their IT head of Dept. is more than able to actually use it (they hired one from us for this end of term production, and loved it). Trouble is, 3 other quotes from other companies all feature AVSL type 12 channel analogues, or cheaper. They also want 10 ways of radio. We specced QLX-D, as will defo do 10 simultaneous, and was reliable enough to be a bit drop proof in a school environment. Others specced Trantec S4.4 on Ch70 (so that is max of 4 concurrent!) or some budget AT-one - 4 of the 8 available frequencies are in the bit of Ch69 offered back by JFMG as Mobile Broadband guard bands! And still only 8 concurrent, not 10! We are the only ones who's quote will work, out of the box, let alone actually stay working for a reasonable period of time. But for that, we are going to be 15-25% more expensive. Peanuts in the scheme of things, for hassle free and reliable equipment? But try explaining that to the bean counters! I cannot drop down to installing cheap crap, which doesn't work, or fulfill client brief, as I haven't got the flannel to extricate myself from such a bad job, and still get paid. Others, with more Arthur Daley style mannerisms, do, and get away with it. That sucks.
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Matt Stolton - Technical Director (!!!) - Wilding Sound Ltd
"Sparkius metiretur vestra" - "Meter Your Mains" |
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toastyghost
The 10,000 Points Club Joined: 09 January 2007 Location: Manchester Status: Offline Points: 10920 |
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Depends if you're motivated by purely money as well though eh?
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MattStolton
Old Croc Joined: 04 September 2010 Location: Walthamstow Status: Offline Points: 4234 |
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I am with Shaggers! His abrupt manner may be, well, abrupt - but sadly he is pretty much bang on. All the "glamour" of touring has attracted some absolute numpties in, who think it is a way to get a cheap ticket to see the gig. This coupled with Tour managers/tour accountants who are fixated with 'their' margin, and suddenly you have 1 or 2 qualified/experienced "event critical" engineers, surrounded by a van load of well meaning, but totally inexperienced "help" on minimum wage or less. Kind of rips the arsehole out of the market, for anyone actually trying to make a living at it. Same with "disco" retail. A few start giving it away, as they have no other way of selling it, as they don't actually know what they are selling, and can't offer support (from their bedroom as they drop ship for 10%) and suddenly the prices have been shat down for everyone. Pretty soon all manufacturers will sell direct, so no "dealers" to get in the way, even the good ones! It is happening to MI in the states as we speak, soon coming to Europe, and whether we are still in or out, will catch on here. Woohoo - cheap retail prices, but at what cost?
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Matt Stolton - Technical Director (!!!) - Wilding Sound Ltd
"Sparkius metiretur vestra" - "Meter Your Mains" |
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spongebob
Young Croc Joined: 20 October 2010 Status: Offline Points: 1395 |
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God knows how much you could charge per day as a mobile smoke machine once all you've crammed up your arse starts leaking out Shag.
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shagnasty
Old Croc Joined: 30 July 2007 Location: Guildford, UK Status: Offline Points: 7685 |
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TBH
"crewing get you gigs" Ha HAHA F'king Ha I did a world tour without knowing what the back of a truck looked like... USSU Crew had this "we crew for Guildford Civic, that's how you get on tour......" yeah, as a lacky.. Crew push my cases, crew don't magically become touring engineers.. I quit touring around 2001, because worthless cretins with "media studies" degrees and other worthless, clueless, "I like to play with myself", not nice people were going out for literally 1/5th what i command, with no catering, no PDS and self drive. That is not touring, that is living rough! I did do little run to cover a gig my mate was TM'ing around 2010, my first poverty tour, still got near to grown up wages but had to drive, the muppet I replaced did 2.5hr loadins and 2hr outs, I got that to 30mins in 14min out ( Salford CREW ROCK) but still no way I am gonna do that for long. My advice if you have a clue about basic IT, stick with that. Entry level IT monkey £40K on 37.5 hr week. Touring monkey £25K for 90/hr a week. I now do conference/exhibition work for a fair day rate, IT consultancy for 3 times that rate and admin render farms for that again. I have a small (ok, like bigger than I meant it to be) Turbosound system that only does gigs I fancy and earns enough to keep my 7.5 tonner and Van on the road, but in real terms that is a hooby to me, I have paid my mortgage and have the time to play with speakers but under no circumstances would I advise anyone to move into what is now a lowest common denominator industry. A £350K house in Guilford will clear you £24K a year ( I know, wouldn't cover my bar bill) a £350K rig will cause you a £700K turnover possibly without £24K clear... Step away, the market is SO dead right now, unless you think £200 a day is a viable wage, stick with IT... Learn WebGL, get £500 for 8hrs a day Edited by shagnasty - 18 April 2017 at 2:08am |
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Teknotice
Registered User Joined: 24 March 2012 Status: Offline Points: 288 |
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Thanks for your comments everyone. All taken on board.
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'why on earth do you need this much amplification?!'
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wires
Young Croc Joined: 21 May 2009 Status: Offline Points: 1365 |
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😂 very true. People have realised rock stars don't make millions anymore and it will take a while for them to realise that sound engineers don't either 😂
Now it's turn up, stare at a computer screen and number values for the entire show and go home. It was way more fun turning buttons and using rare studio gear, then going to the afterparty Edited by wires - 14 April 2017 at 2:16pm |
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Earplug
Old Croc Joined: 03 January 2012 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 7199 |
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How times have changed. Back in the 60´s and 70´s everybody wanted to be a rock star. Now they all want to be sound engineers! |
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Earplugs Are For Wimps!
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wires
Young Croc Joined: 21 May 2009 Status: Offline Points: 1365 |
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Saturated market is an understatement! lol
True story; i did a small multi band event recently where one band was entirely freelance sound engineers, all separately asking if I had any jobs available... not including the stage crew, backline techs and guest foh techs. Over half owned a x32 personally. I feel quite lucky that all my gear is paid for, no debt, no finance and a different type of regular client base to pay the bills so I then get to enjoy some travelling these days, otherwise I think it would be literally crew work as an 'in'. Even the local venues have too many engineers for their size all working on low wages. Not all bad though as there are always opportunities somewhere. |
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King George
Registered User Joined: 18 January 2011 Location: South Status: Offline Points: 334 |
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There are events companies that specialise in temporary IT infrastructure. Some specialise in site wifi, IP cameras etc at outdoor events.
Maybe a good way out whilst developing more skills and leaving a desk job. |
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monkeypuzzle
Young Croc Joined: 25 January 2005 Status: Offline Points: 923 |
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Yep, can only 2nd or 3rd what has been said. There are really only three ways to get to having a successful career (even then its always on the edge!).
!. Local crewing as has been mentioned. There are many site/stage managers, crew bosses, LX and Audio techs that I know that started with a crewing company, shown their worth and been picked up by those that recognise their talents (or lack of sometimes but thats a whole other topic!) 2. Run your own events, spend years (or loads of money) building them up and linking in with other already successful companies. 3. Go back to study and do an events based course at respected university/college... brown nose it from there onwards or be a pretty girl that is willing to spend 3 summers stuffing crew food tokens into envelopes.... Like toasty says, its a saturated market, there are probably more people studying events work than there are jobs in the industry. You have to have something very special to offer, have friends in high places or work very hard for little money. Not to put you off, putting on your own events is a great thing to do as you are then actually employed in the events industry and when you start crewing, you are closer to the level you are aiming at and those that you are looking to be employed by will be able to see your track record.
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blah blah blah blah blah......
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