Freelance Lighting Maintenance

I have about 6+ years experience doing lighting maintenance (fixing cables, ripping apart and cleaning conventional fixtures, blowing the dust out of dimmer racks, troubleshooting, creating paperwork, etc). I've been kicking around the idea of advertising these services to local schools and churches who often have great equipment but don't have a dedicated tech person on staff to maintain it. Anything beyond basic repair and maintenance (eg: fixing electrical issues, etc) that would require a licensed professional, I would of course advise the powers that be to hire the appropriate person.

I would like opinions/ideas/tips from you all. Good idea? Bad idea? Am I opening myself up to loads of liability? What would be a reasonable rate to charge? Any and all opinions welcome. Thanks!

Pretty much no lighting maintenance or repair requires any licence(okay so don't go tearing apart raceways and conduits). You may need to be certified by manufactures in order to do repairs under warranted, but that's about it.
A licence electrician would likely have know idea where to begin if you asked them to repair a moving light ballast, but give me a multi-meter and a soldering iron, and a couple parts from Mouser, and we are off to the races.

There may be a market for the job. Ask your potential clients if they would be interested in such a thing. The easiest thing to do for just a couple places, would to have them hire you part time, so that as an employee you don't need to worry about Liability.

If that is not an option, then you probably want to start an LLC, and get a general liability insurance policy. This is really pretty cheap, and its what most touring guys, and freelancers do.

If you are doing things like the basic shop maintenance you listed than I would work out some reasonable hourly rate, similar to that of their other general staff. If you are doing complex repairs, that are beyond what a typical user can do, ie: there is a sticker that says "DO NOT OPEN, NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE," and then you open it anyway, then you are in a higher priced market. Electronics, Moving light, Chain motor, speaker repairs, etc are probably in the $70-120/hour range.

Thing that I notice in spaces where there is gear and no people to care for it:

-Things get dirty.
-things, get messy and disorganized; cable, gel unlabeled and piled all over,
- nobody keeps inventory of gear or consumables, like lamps and tape
-moving light break and then sit unused in the corner because someone is going to get around to it, and never does

I agree, but I think that, especially for schools, an hourly rate may not be the way to go. You might have more success by quoting a flat fee based on what the client needs done and your examination of how much gear there is and how long you expect it to take. Educational institutions may balk at the idea of an hourly rate to be invoiced, but a flat quoted fee in advance that can be approved or negotiated may be quite a bit easier.

See the thread http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/oh-my.5693 , particularly

derekleffew said:

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If I ran an educational facility, and didn't have the skills/knowledge I possess, I'd pay a "consultant" company up to $500US to conduct a one-day seminar to teach ten of my brightest (again, NPI) students how to disassemble, clean, reassemble, and bench focus 10 of my fixtures. Lights would be pre-mounted on the head-high first electric prior to your arrival. And that's where you would bench focus them onto the cyc, after cleaning. And I'd make sure you had a representation of every light in the building. You'd leave after eight hours, having provided valuable knowledge and experience to my students and bettered my facility. Gafftaper, gaffgreenia, and I will start such a company, and the facility will charge the students' parents $75/each which includes a fast-food lunch, and call it "Lighting Day Band Camp-Are you the First Chair Leko Player" (thanks to whoever's sig that it, best laugh I've had recently.) Only problem is, it can't be held in Seattle, Milwaukee, or Las Vegas, so travel expenses are an issue. But it would have worked at my high school in Ohio. What do you think, everyone? We're looking for "partners," we'll pay $500US/day, no travel pay, plus per diem, first class airfare, and SRO hotel, charged to the facility. For an additional fee and day-rate, we can provide an AppleStar IIe memory control console and instruction, and Ship will provide a Specifications List for your next lamp order, and BillESC will provide a quote on NEW fixtures, including energy-efficient LEDs. See what you started, gafftapegreenia? Van, want to join us?, I'm sure there's place for you in our ever-expanding organization. Apologies to all I've not called by name, Charc et al, no dis-respect intended.

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rochem said:

I agree, but I think that, especially for schools, an hourly rate may not be the way to go. You might have more success by quoting a flat fee based on what the client needs done and your examination of how much gear there is and how long you expect it to take. Educational institutions may balk at the idea of an hourly rate to be invoiced, but a flat quoted fee in advance that can be approved or negotiated may be quite a bit easier.

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You are probably right. They can often source money for that sort of thing from several different budget pool, so that is probably the way to go. Often schools would rather spend money on tangible things, so they will give a lump sum per production, and the department can spend that on a show as they see fit, but ask to hire more people, and they tighten the purse strings.