Designer Fee for College Show?

[randiculous]

I did a bunch of searching around CB, Google, and asked a few friends, but I still feel like I have no idea where to start in negotiating a design fee for my upcoming gig. It's a musical being produced at a state college theatre department in a 400 seat proscenium and it's my first professional gig as an LD. I live pretty far away, so they are flying me out and putting me up somewhere for the 12 days I will be in town and I'll be spending 2 days in transit. The show runs 5 performances over the course of one long weekend, and I won't be able to stick around for strike - I have to get back to my other job. It looks like it'll cost about $400 RT to fly out there, and I suspect they'll put me up somewhere on the campus or with another member of the production team who is local. I want to make sure this gig is worth my time, as I'll be losing all but 1 of my precious vacation days from my regular job to go out and do this.

I think I have a rough idea what my time is worth, and I estimate it'll take me around 160-200 hours of work. My one friend told me to ask for $1000, and my other told me to shoot for $2000 and go a little lower if need be. I'm afraid of marching in and asking for a laughable price, and I'm not even sure if I'm high or low. For some reason $1800 is coming to mind but I really have no idea what I'm doing. I wish someone with more experience could sit me down and explain the business side of this to me. I worked an SM gig this spring and got totally ripped off ($3000 for stage managing 95 kids "part time" for 4.5 months) and I really don't want to do that again.

If you need more background I have a BA in theatre, I've been an LD for 2 theatre department productions and 5+ student productions, and have 4 years professional experience working for house crews and production companies as a technician.

EDIT: we've only had one production meeting where we determined if my schedule would work with the show schedule - it does. So we are just now about to start talking design fees and travel plans.

 

[Footer]

I always do this type of thing by the day, especially travel dates. You are going to be gone away from home for 12 days. That means you are essentially at work for 12 days straight. Away time is worth a lot more then home time. Be sure to ask for at least a 50 dollar a day per-diem to cover food etc. After that, you reallly have to decide what you day is worth. To do that, start with what you think an hour of your time is worth. A good starting place for someone right out of school is 15/hr. Figure a 12 hour day average.... (8*15+4*22.5). That puts your day rate at 210 a day. So, that is 2500 bucks for just the time your in town. Add a few days of pre-production work and your looking at 3k. Add the per-diem (which should be paid in cash the second you arrive) and your looking at 3600 total. At 2k your giving it away. Personally, for a travel day I would be looking at adding at least 5 dollars to your hourly figure to make it worth your while.

 

[randiculous]

Thanks Footer! I kinda figured $15/hr seemed like a good starting point but I just wasn't sure how that compared to the "going rate for a young LD just starting out." For some reason the number seemed so high (perhaps because I'm seriously underpaid at my current FT gig). So I'll be going into the conversation with 3k as my number, plus per diem, travel, and housing and we'll see where it goes. Then again, that's prolly not that high a cost when I think about the kind of stress and hard work I'm gonna have on this gig - designing for a space sight unseen... this'll be a BIG first.

So clearly based on your advice you've done this sort of thing before - What are some mistakes you've made, or seen other people make, that I should avoid when it comes to working on the show? I really want to get off to a stellar start, wanna make sure I have all my bases covered before I get out there and am in over my head.

 

[Footer]

See what they offer to you first, then you get to weigh the experience vs the personal cost. If the experience is something you need, then that needs to figure in. I play that game a lot. So does Mrs. Footer. She just passed the point with a few of the groups she works with where the experience is no longer worth it... so her number shot up.

I always shoot a bit high on my offers and try to come to a meeting place. If I know the gig is going to suck, I will drop the gig before I will take a lower rate. If it something I'm excited about with good people... then I will usually go a bit lower.

Most of the freelance work I do tends more of the one off type of thing. IE, show up in the morning, setup, do a show, go home. Biggest thing is is to learn to pick your battles. Not everyday is going to be perfect. Know when to push, know when to not. In you situation where it a long engagement your going to have the luxury of being able to actually get what you want. Work with the room as much as possible, don't fight it. Outside of college I have never had a show that had a tech period beyond 3 nights, so I'm not really going to be able to give you any advice there. I guess I would just fall back into my college ways where it seemed like we teched forever and I made way to many edits to the show that probably should not have been. Do the show justice. Get your money. Go home.

 

[JChenault]

You might want to take a look at this article:
http://livedesignonline.com/mag/you-cant-afford-be-lighting-designer

It is several years out of date, but talks about the average payment for a LORT B lighitng designer.

by googling " USA lighting design fee" I found the following article
http://www.usa829.org/Portals/0/Documents/Contracts/UPAs/SDA_Dance_Rates_2012-2014_N.pdf

This gives current union rates for dance shows.

And finally.
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/lighting-designer-fee.10702/

An old thread on control booth.