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[Steve Mason]

I have "two roadies" when I do an "all the gear" show.  One is my 20 something daughter and the other is a band mate of similar (old) age to myself.  Last week we did our local county fair. An annual event for me which encompasses 2 1/2 days of music by a variety of local acts.  Everything from 12-20 person drum circle to solo keyboard/guitar artist. 60-90 minute sets with 20-30 minutes changes between acts.  Everyone works hard during set-up/tear down and during "set" changes. But for the most part I run the board all day and my "roadies" are free to roam the venue/fair while the live acts are playing although they spend most of their time in close proximity to FOH in case something is needed.  The question is:

What is a day laborer/roadie worth?  Not someone who can set up and run the gig by themselves but someone who knows the difference between an XLR cable and a speak on cable and the difference between the monitor rack and the power distribution rack.

[Helge A Bentsen]

$52/hour.

[Mal Brown]

I only pay for worked hours.Setup, tear down, changeovers, side stage or sitting at FOH if they are qualified and I am side stage. $25 to$35an hour.  I will also take on a show with an A1 (or the local equivalent thereof) and...  I take 20% to overhead, pay labor and  split the remaining with the A1. 

[Luke Geis]

As a freelancer, my day rate at a minimum was $350 regardless of what I did for up to 10 hours. If you only needed me for 4 hours total, didn't matter, the day rate applied. I would work with a split shift if AND ONLY IF there was no way I could possibly double book for the day. I.E. the call time was 8 am and work till 12pm. come back at 5 pm to strike or whatever. There would be no way to double book, so I was pretty much yours for the day. Anything beyond 10hours was overtime and yes standby time counted. Again I would work with clients on that with setups and strikes if the need was reasonable. Obviously, if you wanted me to set up at 6 am. work 4 hours and then come back at 10 pm to strike, I may be looking for overtime on anything past midnight. That is technically two days...

That being said, my standard day rate for most of my clientele was $550 per day whether I showed up for 1hr. or 10 hours. Anything after 10 hrs. was overtime. Standby or not, if I can't be somewhere else making money, then you are paying me for my day. Some like to argue about the fairness of it, but it is pretty simple really. If you need me for 1hr. smack dab in the middle of the day, I cannot possibly book another event around you. At that point, my whole day is dedicated to your event. So I MUST get paid for that whole time. I quit doing half days when I realized that in most cases I cannot double book around a standard call time. In some cases, I could do a morning call and a late afternoon call, but it is pretty rare.

The question is how much should you pay someone who is just a lackey, lumper, or otherwise grunt worker? I think that $250 is a good starting point for any non-technical, take from here and put there type of person.  If you need them to have some amount of technical knowledge like hooking up a genie, the sound system, lights or actually doing a task that is more than moving a sandbag from the truck to that speaker stand, they are worthy of a $350 day rate. $350 is a rate that should acquire you a person that without instruction can envision what needs to be done and achieve their task with nothing more than a bit of data about the gig.

Different parts of the country work a little differently with how they do " day rates ". In my area, the standard is X price for a 10hr. time slot ( including lunch, so 10hrs. from the time you show up till the time you walk off site ). Some companies and states do 8hrs and then overtime. So want you to deduct lunch from the time, and it can be agreed upon however you and your employer wish to.

[Brian Jojade]

When I hire help, I guarantee that any shift is a minimum 4 hour call.  If there are spurts of work, throughout the day, they are still committed to be there for the day, so they're getting paid to be there, and the client gets billed for the labor being there too.

It's a work bonus if they get to go wander around for a bit here and there.  It would be pretty hard to find workers that would come in, work a half hour changeover, then be off the clock until the next changeover, unless you paid a heck of an hourly rate.  Cheaper to just get that 4 hour block at a reasonable rate and have them there.

It used to be that $25/hr for part time workers was good pay. However, in today's market, even that's tough to entice people to lift a finger.  Makes you re-think what the hard jobs should really be worth.

[MattLeonard]

I think this is overwhelmingly dependent on the local market. So many people post questions about rates - and I think geography is the key part of the answer most people leave out.

A stagehand in rural Arkansas vs a stagehand in San Francisco or NY are entirely different.  As a PM - I see some touring gigs where we can hire local   crew to push boxes for $15/hr. In SF - it's hard to get college kids to even return my call for $25/hr, and folks expect an 8-hr minimum/day rate - because IATSE has done a good job of raising pay expectations, even for non-union gigs.

Of course - market niche matters a lot too.  Are you working professional full-time  gigs and this is your career - or are you just helping a friend out on the side? Corporate/professional events or "I know a guy with some speakers" production? Are you supplying personal tools (even as a white glove) or just a pair of hands?

[scottstephens]

Steve,

   I don't think that we can answer that question very well.  What does your market pay? How much are you making? What is your profit margin? What are your total expenses?  All of these questions and more should be worked out way before you set foot on site. You have to establish a budget and stick to it.  Do you have a contract with the venue or the promoter and or your crew?
   And, also, what do you feel comfortable paying? Personally, I pay a couple of my people more than the competition does because I want them to work for me if they get other offers and I trust them to handle it if things go sideways. The rest just get base pay of about $18/hr.  But I also charge more than quite a few of my competitors. It weeds out the crappy jobs and headaches. There are guys around here doing sound for $150 for a 4 hour gig and paying the help $12/hr and beer.   Those guys don't have insurance or workman's comp, decent gear,  or anything that makes a business a business, including professionalism.  If you drink on my job, your ass is gone without pay. And I'd better not catch you playing on your damn phone when there is work to be done.
    It's all about the Pre-Producttion.

Scott

[Luke Geis]

What is happening these days is a HUGE Q mark as to what is an acceptable rate? I can say for certain that $$$$ doesn't change the quality of the worker. They either have the ethics you want or they don't. The $$$ amount will motivate them to show up, but it won't make them a better worker. I think the reason for the recent labor crunch is showing how undervalued skilled production staff was to begin with. Many have moved onto other trades probably making the same or more money now and they are working standard hours. One of my constituents went on to a different career after being offered a management position, salary ( a reasonable one at that ), and benefits at the production company I am currently a production manager for. He took similar pay and similar benefits in order to have a more stable, home every night by 6 pm, and off on the weekends type of job. He knows what he is worth doing his trade and he felt he could do better in a new trade while having a better home life.

MOST punters in the production world are NOT highly skilled at the craft. They can do one or two things well and well enough to be valuable, but they were paid like they were chumps in the trade. I love stagehands just as much as I love my A1 or my A2. As far as I am concerned they are worth the same as me, or at least close to it. I don't want to set up a stage and run the show. These guys come in and get stuff done so I don't have to, for a production that depends on them to be there to do it. Good workers were not being paid what they are worth in our industry and we are feeling the pinch for that under sight.

[Dave Pluke]

I think this is overwhelmingly dependent on the local market. So many people post questions about rates - and I think geography is the key part of the answer most people leave out.

Correct.

For the record, my experience with day rates are similar to Luke's. On occasions where we had to hire union labor, we were charged $x/hr with a 4 hour minimum. Overtime applied after 8 hours.

IMHO, it's unfair to piecemeal hours - union or non. It is in our best interest to make sure labor has clear instructions, reasonable oversight and plenty of work on the to-do list.

Dave

[Jay Marr]

I only pay for worked hours.Setup, tear down, changeovers, side stage or sitting at FOH if they are qualified and I am side stage. $25 to$35an hour.  I will also take on a show with an A1 (or the local equivalent thereof) and...  I take 20% to overhead, pay labor and  split the remaining with the A1.

I agree with the rates above.
But I would pay for the time they arrive, to the time they leave.
They are there in case you need them.  They have tied themselves up for the entire time they are there.  They deserve to get paid for all of those hours.
From my perspective, that's not even a question.  If I was hired for similar work, I would not accept any other terms.

[ProSoundWeb Community]