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[Dustin Campbell]

I may have an opportunity for me and my friend to do sound for some small weddings (50-100). I have a decent PA for my band. My friends Aunt has a catering company that he has been working with her so we have a line on 1-3 weddings per month. My band is drummerless right now and it may be a good way to generate some cash for more equipment.  Any thoughts on pricing, what it all entails or just random thoughts, just not sure where to begin? Thanks

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

I may have an opportunity for me and my friend to do sound for some small weddings (50-100). I have a decent PA for my band. My friends Aunt has a catering company that he has been working with her so we have a line on 1-3 weddings per month. My band is drummerless right now and it may be a good way to generate some cash for more equipment.  Any thoughts on pricing, what it all entails or just random thoughts, just not sure where to begin? Thanks

As usual, you should price your services as much as possible according to the "going rate" so as not to compete unfairly with established sound companies.  How do you determine this?  Simple:

Set your price such that if, for whatever reason, you cannot do the job, you can hire a competent, established substitute and not have to pay money out of your pocket to make up the difference between your "low-ball, ankle-biter" rate and the local standard.

I don't think you're out to purposely be cheap or undercut anyone, but it can happen.

Another thing:

You really can't do this type of work without carrying liability insurance.  This also means having a business license, paying taxes and such.  All this has to be figured into what you charge.

There's a deep end to every pool...

[Dustin Campbell]

absolutely - I don't want to undercut the current market - I would rather people use us for our quality of service than price alone which is just asking for trouble - insurance won't be that big of a deal, I am in the insurance business , taxes as well.

You are right about the deep end -decent equipment is not cheap- Lav's, wireless mics, etc

but what kinda scares me is the production element like the ceremony, and MC'ing, queing the right music and I am no DJ either, but it still doesn't seem out of reach- probably make more money than my rock band ever did, but I did that for fun and pick up a few bucks from time to time. (definitely wouldn't be the wedding band)

[Dave Bednarski]

This is something we take into consideration when bidding weddings and has worked well as a general rule of thumb.

The Knot (and many other websites), rules of thumb that when you get married, you start to plan/budget for your wedding you can expect to spend X percent on all of these different categories... the band/entertainment is typically 8-10% of the wedding budget.

The reception/dinner is typically 45-50% of a wedding budget.  So if the venue is roughly $150/person and they are having 100 people... they will probably spend $3000 on a band or DJ.  Worth doing it?

If its a firehall w/ a keg in the corner, and its $45/person at 100 people... their entertainment budget may be around $900.  Worth doing it?

We add up our overhead + travel + time spent day of + how many special songs to learn = # rehearsals... compare the numbers and try to give a fair bid for the market/venue/event.

[Dustin Campbell]

that makes good sense-also we would just be running the sound and playing prerecorded music, toasts etc - just curious of any pitfalls to watch out for and any good websites to kind of get an idea of (I did check out the knot) on how to plan a good system and what will be expected of us?

[Dave Bednarski]

that makes good sense-also we would just be running the sound and playing prerecorded music, toasts etc - just curious of any pitfalls to watch out for and any good websites to kind of get an idea of (I did check out the knot) on how to plan a good system and what will be expected of us?

Ignoring all other concerns, insurance, equipment, etc...

You should probably either start attending a lot of weddings to get a feel of how they flow for bands (not DJs) or hire someone to coordinate all of this for you until you have a few under your belt.  There are a lot of moving parts in this territory...

[Dustin Campbell]

That is a good idea- get some back up -and do some homework - i'll keep you guys posted - any other thought - always welcomed

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