I used to work for a rep
house that built shows to rent or rented shows we didn't want to
build (Music
Theatre of Wichita and Lyric
Theatre of Oklahoma). We usually rented from other musical
theatre rep houses like Gateway Playhouse. Occasionally we would
pick up an old touring set or broadway set from
Network Tours or something like that.
Few pointers...
-See if the company can
send someone to
call the
load in who knows the set... this will save you a ton of man hours
-Get all drawings a few weeks out and see what you will need to do about size issues. We usualy had to change trims and
portal width drastically depending on what size the
theatre was built for.
-Are the drops with the set big enough/too big? What can you do about that?
-Are there any electrics that need to be dealt with (wireless
DMX recievers, batteries,
etc)
-How many trucks? How many dead cases do you need to store?
-How heavy is the scenery? Will your rigging support it?
-What is the
lineset schedule of the orignal design and can your fly
system deal with that?
-Any special rigging?
-How much
wing space do you need and do you have it?
-Are there
soft goods that are not included that you don't already have (fullstage black, scrims,
etc)
-Do they
send it with all hardware?
-Do they
send it with all rigging? Its common for companies to not include
trim chain or even rigging packages in general due to liability.
-How many days do you have the set before it loads in? We always tried to get it a week before
load in so we could
lay it out in our convention
hall space and figure out any issues there.
-Does it have to screw into the
deck? Can you do that in your
venue?
-Do you need
pig iron for
counterweight that is not included?
There are a host of other questions.... but theres a start.