Should I rent out my mics? What to charge?

[Phobos]

A local engineer who I know just a little bit asked to rent some of my mics to record a large ensemble. He seems like a cool guy and is knowledgeable about gear, I have no doubt he will treat them well. But before I do this, I would like some feedback. #1: Is this just a bad idea? and #2: What should I charge? I'm sure it would vary by mic, I have everything from SM57s to much more expensive AEA and AKG mics. Not even sure what he wants yet.

[The Scum]

If you're comfortable with the situation, then it might be a way to make some money with gear that would otherwise be sitting.

Even if you have insurance on the gear for your own use, it's probably not covered if it's rented out.

For pricing, look at what the competition is charging. There are a number of rental places that will ship to the renter: lensrentals.com being the first to come to mind. It might be that it makes more sense for them to rent from someone who is already in the business. Their pricing is pretty reasonable - an SM57 is $22 a week...that's $3 a day. Is it worth your time and effort to make peanuts on a one-off rental?

Kelcema are near you, more live sound stuff, but another reference on rates. SM57 = $5/day.

Anyone seriously in the rental business will have some additional layers of financial protection - holding deposits on credit cards and the like. Worth looking into if you're getting into that end of the business.

Sharegrid.com is a peer-to-peer local network of people with gear to rent. Mostly cinema/video, but there's audio gear in there too. Another pricing reference, and a place to list if you

[kslight]

I don’t like loaning gear, not the same as renting gear but even with friends it’s a question of how upset would I be if they decided to keep it.

Like the above poster commented, the going rate of a 57 is so low that it’s not worth my time, and in the case of something with a lot of value to it I don’t really want to take the risk.

I’ve loaned out gear here and there and every single time I have wondered if I’m ever going to see it again…everything ends up borrowed for way longer than expected (measured in years), and there was pushback in getting it returned (people misplaced the gear or parts of it, or are never in town, quit responding to emails, etc).

I’ve gotten everything back in the end but it’s not worth the hassle or risk to me.


The way you could approach this is he could hire you for the session and you bring the equipment, take it home when you’re done.

[I'm Painting Again]

rental houses in NY will usually let you rent stuff with a replacement value under $3k with a hold on a credit card

after that it's short term equipment rental policies and those are about $200 for up to 25 grand

then there's yearly and policies for long term projects or people that rent consistently

then policies when you rent stuff with a really high replacement value

the customer buys a policy and issues a COI in your name

I've only been on the renter end and it seems pretty simple from my POV

though you could call up a rental house owners and ask them for the real 411



https://www.athosinsurance.com

[Scodiddly]

I work for a live sound company that does a lot of business in rentals - other companies, churches, occasional studio users, etc. My advice is don't rent out anything you actually care about personally. Set up your rates and insurance or credit hold so that a damaged/destroyed/lost microphone will be replaced or repaired without extra cost to you. Even the best customer can damage a mic. A few years ago one of our good customers, a big show company, had a truck burn down with a fair amount of our gear in it.

Also mark your gear with an asset tag or similar thing, so that there won't be any question of which things are yours. Or if it something gets left behind and some kind person actually bothers to try to get it back to you.

[vvv]

Factor in cleaning, also, especially mic's.

To this day, I still recall the garlic'd beat-up chrome EV a club provided on stage ...

[jimjazzdad]

Apparently, according to a post on another audio forum, the 'standard' rate for audio equipment rentals is 3 - 4% of the full retail price per day. Prorated for longer rentals, so x 1.5 for two days, and so on. Seems to jive with the local rental places in my area.

[Scodiddly]

In the live sound world it's a 3-day week. If you rent for 3-7 days you pay for 3 days.