What a Production Deck Hire Day Rate Actually Covers

Ask three suppliers for a day rate on a portable production deck and you may hear three different answers, because the phrase has no fixed meaning in our trade. For some it means the equipment alone. For others it means equipment and operators together. A few quote a figure that stops at the loading bay and leaves transport to you. None of this is dishonest, but it makes quotes hard to compare.

At focusedix we hire out portable decks supplied with a technical crew, so our day rate always describes a working package rather than a box of kit. That is the version of the term I want to explain here, because it is the one a producer booking an outside broadcast or a studio day will usually need.

A day rate for a deck and crew covers the deck itself in its flight cases, the switcher, monitoring and intercom that travel with it, and the cabling needed to connect it to your cameras and your outgoing path. It also covers the crew for the agreed hours, which means the people who set up, operate and strip down the system.

Think of it as a ready-to-run gallery that arrives with the people who know where every lead goes. You are paying for a show that works at the agreed start time, not for items on a shelf. The exact contents are written into the quotation, so nothing depends on memory or assumption.

• The portable deck with switcher, monitoring and intercom
• Cabling between the deck, cameras and your feed point
• Technical crew for the agreed working hours
• Set up and strip down at the venue

Some items are quoted on their own line. Travel to and from your venue, any overnight stay for the crew on a distant job, and extra cameras or lenses beyond what the deck package assumes are the usual ones. Hours that run past the agreed finish also sit outside, because a crew booked until six cannot quietly become a crew working until midnight.

I would rather you see these lines on paper before the day than meet them on an invoice afterwards. When a quote lumps everything into a single figure, ask for it to be broken down. A good supplier will not mind, and the answers tell you a good deal about how the day will be run.

A day is never only the broadcast. The crew arrives well before you go live to place the deck, run cables, check every source and line up the intercom. After the show comes the strip down, which takes longer than people expect when cases must be repacked in order.

So a show that runs for two hours may sit inside a working day of eight or more. When you read a day rate, check whether the hours it names are show hours or crew hours. We state crew hours, from arrival to departure, so the length of the day you pay for matches the length of the day we actually work.

Before you accept a quote for a deck and crew, a short set of questions will make it comparable with any other you hold. They cost nothing to ask and they prevent the awkward conversation that follows a surprise charge.

Keep the answers in writing. A written quotation or confirmation is how we work, and it gives both sides one document to refer to if the plan changes between the booking and the day itself. If a supplier is vague on any of these points, treat that as information in its own right.

• Is the crew included, and for how many hours?
• Who pays for transport, and for overnight stays?
• What happens if the show overruns the booked time?
• Which cameras and cables arrive with the deck?
• How is a changed date or cancellation handled?

A deck in a studio you already know is a simpler job than the same deck in a field or a sports hall with no spare power. The day rate does not change the venue, but the venue changes how much of the day is setup and how many people the job needs.

Tell us early what the space offers: power, rigging points, the route in for flight cases. A short site conversation lets us fix the crew size and the quotation together, so the figure you approve is the figure you pay. Our contact page is the place to start that conversation.