Ok... Now wasn't that just a real dose of feeling sorry for myself... Geesh... I'll try to refrain from that in the future...
So my beef today is about producers and the clients for fund raisers... I'll just stick to the ones that are raiseing money for good causes today... Not things like political fund raiseing, since that's a whole different animal...
Late yesterday, a friend of mine called me and said, "Hey, can you come to a meeting tommorow morning in the city? (NYC)" Me... "What for?" Him... "Its a fund raiser for charity/orginization X" Me... "Ok, but I can only spare you 2 hours tops, I'm slammed right now"
So off I went this morning, to find out what the job is, where it is, when, etc... I'm not going to get into just exactly how disorginized these people are, because that's quite common... (that's after all why they hire people like me) My problem comes from the overall client thinking that everything will be free, and they will not have to worry about minor things like the union labor contract at the venue in question... I will tell you, that the theatre this event is happening in, is a no-nonsence, serious, production facility... They do all manor of events there, and the house crew knows their job... It is in fact, how those crew members make their living... They all have their union cards and contracts, and the place runs well, because the contract is not abusive to clients, or the crew members... One of the first things the producers are discussing is how to circumvent the union rules... Hello?... If you didn't want to deal with the union, why the hell did they book this space?... There are enough other places without the union aspect... Next beef is as I sat there, giving these people a sence of what various aspects might cost them, they start hitting me with "well the decorating company is doing everything pro bono, and it would normally be a $40,000 job for them..." I'm thinking, but sure didn't say "well la de da honey... why don't you go and get your decorater to hang several tons of equipment overhead so it doesn't fall and kill someone..." What I did say was "hmmm... Well that's very generous of them, unfortunatly, while you represent a very worthy orginization, this is how I make my living, if I compped everything to all the charities I work for, I would have been out of business a couple months after I opened... If you would like to research other scenic companies that may be more willing take on the job for nothing, I will be happy to provide you with a list of every company I currently know of." Yes, I know, that was a bit snotty, but its true... Probably 25% of my jobs are charities.... I do make an effort to not over-charge them, but there are costs associated with what I do, that I simply can not let slide...
Now, I might have managed to feel just a tad bad about not being generous in this case, except I happen to have found out what they are chargeing people to get in to the event... I am estimateing that the space will seat roughly 1500 people... They have sold every seat in the place... They charged $5000 for every one of those seats... My total estimated bill for my contribution to this event is just over a grand... Let me extend out a few of these numbers for you... That comes out at 7.5 million dollars in ticket charges... I am guessing that the space, the house crew, and most of their rental equipment will cost around $100,000... My little piece of this is lets say $1250.00... So my bill is 1.25% of their event cost... The event cost is 1.33% of their ticket sales... Which means my cost is .0166% of their ticket sales... Am I missing something here?... I'm usually pretty good with numbers... They have sold the tickets already... That means they have the money from those ticket sales... They are trying to nickle and dime with me over my little piece of the pie?...
If you could invest $100,000, and inside 1 month, turn that around for $7,500,000, don't you think that would seem fair? That's a 7500% return on investment... Not to mention, they have the $7.5 mil now, before they have invested the $100 grand... Anyone out there know of a sweeter deal than that?... I mean sure, you could hit the lottery, but you actually have to spend the dollar first before you get the payout...
I am simply disgusted... I should run the bill up on these cheapskates...
Posted by Backstage at October 17, 2003 07:08 PM