4 ms·

While I agree that the $450 bracket installation is crazy, $900 for the TV is not bad at all. Say the TV is $500 retail. If it breaks you are out $1000, and you

While I agree that the $450 bracket installation is crazy, $900 for the TV is not bad at all. Say the TV is $500 retail. If it breaks you are out $1000, and you have to scramble to buy a new one. When you rent, the spare is in a road box behind the curtain, and a professional shop would not charge you for damages unless something smelled really funny. Source: used to work in corporate event technology

albedoa 9y ago
If the TV is $500 retail, why are you out $1,000 if it breaks?
- CorpOverreach 9y ago
  Because you had to buy another one for another $500.
- Someone 9y ago
  grivescorbett assumes you buy one and discard it after the trade show. If that one breaks, you have to buy a second one and discard it, too. Total cost: $1,000. Of course, at a (US) trade show, if your rented $900 tv breaks, even if they have a spare one, they will take a day to find a cart (for which you have to pay rent) to ride it to your booth (which has to be done by two union members, can’t be done while the trade show is open, so has to be done after 5 PM, doubling labor costs and requiring you to pay for keeping the floor open, too (even though they can charge that to almost all exhibitors)), and you have to pay for union members to plug in that new tv. All that hopefully after other union members unplugged the old tv, or you will be charged for using two power plugs. (I have limited experience with this, but from that experience, the above seems only slightly exaggerated. On the trade shows I worked on, you weren’t allowed to carry the booth material you carried all the way from the airport to your booth)
  - grivescorbett 9y ago
    Again, I'm right there with you on the labor issue :).
1_2__4 9y ago
Sure and this is also the reason renting cars costs tens of thousands of... oh... wait.
daveFNbuck 9y ago
What are the chances that a new tv will break during a 3-day trade show? I'm going to be generous and guess it's less than 10%. If the conference bought TVs for everyone, plus an extra 20% to cover the ones that break with extra breathing room, it would cost $600 to get a TV. This assumes the conference throws out the TVs at the end. The rental company is supposed to be able to amortize these costs over years of renting the same TV. Even at the 10% breakage rate, you'd expect to rent a TV 9 times before it breaks on the 10th rental. This should allow you to rent a TV for closer to $50 plus labor and a little margin for profit. That's why renting is usually much cheaper than buying and not slightly cheaper than buying 2.
- grivescorbett 9y ago
  You never produce a live event like that without spares, everything can and will break. Your idea about the conference buying spares for everyone is interesting. Unfortunately for one, the financial incentives are just not setup in that way. Generally each booth is responsible for its own gear. Second, everyone needs different sizes, resolutions, mounts, color profiles, refresh rates, input types, network control options, blackout behavior, etc, etc. Also, the discount vs extra expense of the gear is correlated to the cost of the gear. A $100,000 projector (mid-range) will obviously costly less to rent for three days, and is well worth it. With a TV though, they rental company is able to charge a premium because their customers simply will not purchase that type of equipment for all of the reasons above.
  - daveFNbuck 9y ago
    If we're just saying that the rental companies can charge $900 for the TV because that's what people are willing to pay, the same applies to paying $450 for bracket installation. In a competitive environment, you should expect the price to be close to the marginal cost of providing the service. The marginal equipment cost for providing a TV is the cost of the TV divided the number of events you expect it to last through. This doesn't change if you have spares. To get close to $900 for a $500 TV, you either need extremely high overhead and labor costs or TVs that break a little more than halfway through the rental. If a TV can generally survive 30 days of use, equipment costs only justify $50 of the bill for a 3-day rental. I don't see how you would get anywhere near $900 from there.

albedoa 9y ago

If the TV is $500 retail, why are you out $1,000 if it breaks?

CorpOverreach 9y ago
Because you had to buy another one for another $500.
Someone 9y ago
grivescorbett assumes you buy one and discard it after the trade show. If that one breaks, you have to buy a second one and discard it, too. Total cost: $1,000. Of course, at a (US) trade show, if your rented $900 tv breaks, even if they have a spare one, they will take a day to find a cart (for which you have to pay rent) to ride it to your booth (which has to be done by two union members, can’t be done while the trade show is open, so has to be done after 5 PM, doubling labor costs and requiring you to pay for keeping the floor open, too (even though they can charge that to almost all exhibitors)), and you have to pay for union members to plug in that new tv. All that hopefully after other union members unplugged the old tv, or you will be charged for using two power plugs. (I have limited experience with this, but from that experience, the above seems only slightly exaggerated. On the trade shows I worked on, you weren’t allowed to carry the booth material you carried all the way from the airport to your booth)
- grivescorbett 9y ago
  Again, I'm right there with you on the labor issue :).

1_2__4 9y ago

Sure and this is also the reason renting cars costs tens of thousands of... oh... wait.

daveFNbuck 9y ago

What are the chances that a new tv will break during a 3-day trade show? I'm going to be generous and guess it's less than 10%. If the conference bought TVs for everyone, plus an extra 20% to cover the ones that break with extra breathing room, it would cost $600 to get a TV. This assumes the conference throws out the TVs at the end. The rental company is supposed to be able to amortize these costs over years of renting the same TV. Even at the 10% breakage rate, you'd expect to rent a TV 9 times before it breaks on the 10th rental. This should allow you to rent a TV for closer to $50 plus labor and a little margin for profit. That's why renting is usually much cheaper than buying and not slightly cheaper than buying 2.

grivescorbett 9y ago
You never produce a live event like that without spares, everything can and will break. Your idea about the conference buying spares for everyone is interesting. Unfortunately for one, the financial incentives are just not setup in that way. Generally each booth is responsible for its own gear. Second, everyone needs different sizes, resolutions, mounts, color profiles, refresh rates, input types, network control options, blackout behavior, etc, etc. Also, the discount vs extra expense of the gear is correlated to the cost of the gear. A $100,000 projector (mid-range) will obviously costly less to rent for three days, and is well worth it. With a TV though, they rental company is able to charge a premium because their customers simply will not purchase that type of equipment for all of the reasons above.
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  If we're just saying that the rental companies can charge $900 for the TV because that's what people are willing to pay, the same applies to paying $450 for bracket installation. In a competitive environment, you should expect the price to be close to the marginal cost of providing the service. The marginal equipment cost for providing a TV is the cost of the TV divided the number of events you expect it to last through. This doesn't change if you have spares. To get close to $900 for a $500 TV, you either need extremely high overhead and labor costs or TVs that break a little more than halfway through the rental. If a TV can generally survive 30 days of use, equipment costs only justify $50 of the bill for a 3-day rental. I don't see how you would get anywhere near $900 from there.