So you bring out $10,000+ worth of lighting gear and set it up, run it and tear it down for only $500?
Yeah. Gotta love living in a small town. The problem is, if I charged $1,000 for the works, they'd pretty much collect dust all year.
I make more from DJ'ing than from providing sound for bands, weddings, school dances, etc. There's honestly not a lot of money to be made from the bar scene, I'm sure most are aware of that. This weekend I went to three hotspots in the big city. Two of them were an S.O.S. affair run poorly, the other place had a couple pairs if QSC something's a small 16ch board, 3 monitors and yeah they basically did what they could. All 3 places are passionate about live music, hats off to them but I can tell there's just not a lot of money to be made from that scene at that level.
I'll probably end up in a bigger city someday, people tell me I could make a killing there, or so I hear. But at double the price. Kind of is what it is. The lights are all paid for from income, and its just a matter of depreciating them over time. Like I said, my goal is to expand what I do into the next town on each side. I've landed a couple gigs on the one side, haven't tried very hard on the other side yet.
Baby steps.