Budget Estimate

chawalang

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone,

I recently was asked by a friend who teaches in a performing arts high school to advise them on a technical management class. In this class they want to introduce the students to various different kinds of technical management fields outside of the traditional TD in a regional theatre. One thing that came up was being a TD/PM in a road house or for corporate events.

A question I have is what resources would any of you recommend for estimating budgets needed for the project? When I do that kind of work I always look at previous projects I have worked on to have an idea about, ohh this kind of audio package would cost this much or this kind of lighting package would cost this much to rent for this event. This being based on previous projects that are the same scale. Having good relationships with vendors has always served me well to get pretty constant pricing on what I would need. I guess my question comes from my experience of rinse and repeat from different kinds of projects I have done to plan for ones coming up. same would go for estimating labor.

I guess you would say i learned a lot of my technical management skills in the trenches and it wasn't necessarily taught to me in school, or at least that kind of technical management wasn't taught to me in school.

So if I could be in a class like this at 18, and someone gave me a light plot and wanted me to figure out how to estimate the rental cost for it for a show/ to see if it is even feasible due to cost, are there any resources out there besides lived human experience?

I also think this is a great opportunity to not only get these kids introduced to a side of the industry that isn't taught a lot, but to also get them to think about financial responsibility/ risk and critical thinking skills!
 
I think this is a great idea. I love that there are classes outside of just design, but offering practical skills.

First, identify where the project is intended as the infrastructure will be greatly different between a theater and a convention hall. Your biggest difference in estimates will come from peripheral equipment (feeder, cables, etc.) And not the instruments.
 
For me I would think give them some scenarios. Something like a empty open space, a venue with a rep plot and something in between.
Then source a price list from a local company ( this could be a good opportunity to pitch this project to a local company and help educate the young ones) and get them to list everything that is required to put together the system required.
Then with feedback from teachers adjust the inventory and think about labour. Can you say that to hang cable and focus a fixture takes 15min which accounts for unpacking, hanging, gel, focus, fault finding and even some of the truss construction. If you think about it 15min might be about right.
These people (we) have so many online resources that finding most of this info will be easy. Then you top it up with your experience and instead of telling them you ask them questions and make them think about it. Questions like why would you do it like that? what else might you need? Have you thought about XXX. I am sure you get the idea.

I will be following this with great interest as I am all for teaching young people our craft.
Regards

Geoff
 
Another + for loving this idea! One of the best courses I took was the business of being a theater professional. We didn't do any "production" instead we built out websites, marketed ourselves as a business, printed business cards and built budgets around travel, how to eat on the road and not die, how to save for retirement all while continuing to work. Helping young professionals learn how to earn a living makes all the difference.
 
Talking, basic communication skills. Kids these days have a great internet presence. Then you stick them in front of someone and ask them to talk and they clam up. Hopefully that’s included in this course.
 

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