After 5 EventsThe line that bundles everything
Sound and light. Audio-visual. Technical production. AV package. All of these can mean a console and two speakers, or they can mean a day's work by three people who also brought the truss. If the line does not list the equipment and does not specify crew hours separately, you are being quoted a lump sum, and a lump sum hides whether the price moves when your guest count does.
Ask what is in the package. Not categories — the actual microphones, the number of par cans, the mixer model if you are comparing two quotes and need to know whether you are buying the same thing. Then ask how many crew and for how many hours. If the supplier cannot answer immediately, the quote was assembled by someone who will not be in the room.
The line that says 'coordination' or 'management'
Production management. Event coordination. Technical direction. Three names for the same line, and sometimes the same cost appears twice — once as a percentage on top of every supplier, once as a flat fee at the bottom.
This is the fee for the person who runs the show. In one model, that person is a planner who briefs freelancers and takes a margin on each one. In another, that person is the technician who hung the rig yesterday and will be there when it comes down. The fee can be identical; what you are buying is not.
Ask who will be on site. Ask whether they work for the company quoting or were hired for your date. Then ask whether suppliers are billed at cost or marked up, and by how much. The answer is in how long the silence lasts.
The line for staff
Bartender, host, runner, setup crew, security. Often quoted as a count and a rate: two bartenders, eight hours, forty per hour. What is usually missing: whether the eight hours includes their arrival and departure, whether the rate changes after midnight, and whether the price holds if you add thirty people Thursday afternoon.
Crew costs are the variable that moves. A quote built in May assumed a guest count. If that count is now thirty higher, the bar needs another pair of hands, and those hands either are already in the quote as a buffer or they get added the week before as a revision.
Ask what the rate covers. Ask when overtime starts and what it costs. Ask how much the headcount can move before staffing changes. The companies that do this often will have a number.
The line you do not see
Transport is in some quotes and not others. Same with bump-in and teardown, with the site visit, with the day-after pack. If the quote does not mention it, it is not included, and assuming it was is how a four-thousand-euro evening becomes five.
Rig hire sometimes includes delivery. Sometimes delivery is separate and mileage is extra. Sometimes the driver's time is in, sometimes it is billed after. Sometimes bump-in is covered in the technician's rate, sometimes the rigger and the operator are two different people charged separately.
Read for what is absent. If there is no line for transport, ask. If the quote does not mention breakdown, ask how long the crew stays and what happens to the cost if the venue needs the room cleared by one instead of three.
The line that says 'additional services' or 'as required'
This is the line that exists so the quote can be revised later. It covers everything the client might ask for once they see the room: an extra screen, a mic for the surprise speaker, a longer cable run because the only power is thirty metres farther than anyone thought.
It is not dishonest. It is how a quote gets written three months early for an event that will change eight times before the day. But it does mean the number at the bottom is the floor, not the ceiling, and the distance between them depends on how much is still undecided.
Ask what typically gets added. Not what could — what does, for this type of event at this kind of venue. The answer will be specific if the company has done this before.
The three questions that matter
Who is on site the day of, and do they work for you or were they hired in? The answer tells you whether the company quoting is the one delivering.
What happens to the price if our guest count moves by twenty, or if we run an hour late? The answer tells you where the give is and whether it has been priced as contingency or will arrive as a surprise.
Can I see the rider for the equipment — the actual spec list, not the summary? The answer tells you whether the person writing the quote knows what is in the truck, and if they do not, you are paying someone to ask someone else.
What to settle before you call
The venue and the date. Everything downstream — transport cost, crew availability, how long the rig takes to build — follows from those two.
The format. Seated dinner, standing reception, plated service, buffet and bar. Each one puts crew in different places doing different work for different spans of time, and the quote cannot firm up until that is settled.
The headcount, or at least the range. Fifty to seventy is a plan. Fifty to two hundred is three different events, and no quote will price all three honestly.
After 5 Events is the production side of the company — the crew that delivers the equipment, builds the room and runs the technical through the night. The people who write the quote are the ones in the venue at seven in the morning, which means the quote reflects the work as it will actually happen, not how it reads in the forwarded brief. What you decide now is whether the line items above are clear enough to compare two numbers, or whether you need to ask the three questions first.