Why there is no single figure
Organisers often ask for a flat day rate for an outside broadcast crew, and I understand why. A budget line needs a number. The difficulty is that two events with the same date and the same stage can need very different crews, because the work is built around what the show asks of the temporary control room rather than around the calendar.
A small party with three cameras and a stream to a private audience may need two people and a compact rack. A festival stage with eight cameras, replay and a caller on headset needs a crew several times that size. Both are outside broadcast crewing, yet the invoice for each is built from different parts.
What I can do is explain those parts so you can see where a quotation comes from. Our prices page gives the standing rates for each service. This article covers what moves a quotation above or below them when the crew is working away from our Ipswich base.
The crew itself: roles and hours
The largest part of any quotation is people. Each role on the crew is a person with a defined job: a technical lead who owns the build and the fault-finding, vision mixing, a camera or signal engineer, and sometimes a graphics or replay operator. Every role added is a day rate multiplied by the days the crew is with you.
Hours matter as much as headcount. A crew booked for a long festival day is not only working during the show. Someone has to arrive early to build, test and line up the cameras, and stay afterwards to clear the deck. Those hours sit either side of the broadcast and are priced as working time, because they are.
We quote the working day as the whole span from arrival to clear-out, not the length of the performance. That is the single point where early budgets and final invoices most often part company, so I put it in writing at the start.
- Number of roles on the crew
- Length of the working day, including build and clear-out
- Number of show days
- Whether a rehearsal day is needed
The temporary control room and its kit
A temporary control room has to exist somewhere. Sometimes the venue already has a suitable room or deck, and sometimes we build one in a tent, a van or a corner of a hall. The kit that goes into it, from the switcher and monitoring to intercom and cabling, is costed according to how much of it the show actually needs.
Camera count drives this more than anything else. Each extra camera adds a position to cable and an operator or remote head to manage, and it adds to the monitoring wall and the number of inputs on the switcher. A production that grows from four cameras to six is not simply two cameras dearer; it can change the size of the whole control room.
If you already own equipment, or the venue supplies cameras and a switcher, say so early. Crewing alone is a smaller quotation than crew plus kit, and we will price only what you need us to bring.
Location, access and distance
Where the event is held changes the price in ways that have little to do with the screen. Distance from Ipswich sets the travel time and fuel for the crew and the kit. A site in Suffolk or Norfolk is a short day's journey; somewhere further across the East of England may mean more travel hours, and occasionally an overnight stay.
Access matters just as much. A hall with a loading bay and a power supply close to the stage is straightforward. A field with a long cable run from the generator to the control tent takes more time and more cable, and the extra metres are paid for in build hours.
Power and shelter are worth checking before we visit. A control room needs clean, steady power and protection from rain and dust. If the site cannot offer either, we plan around it, and that planning shows up honestly in the figure.
- Travel time and any overnight stay
- Distance of cable runs on site
- Power supply and weather cover for the deck
What a site visit and early planning save
The cheapest quotation is rarely the one that arrives fastest. A short conversation, and where it helps a visit to the venue, lets us size the crew properly rather than padding the figure to cover things we cannot see. Hannah's job, which is mine, is to turn that conversation into a crew list and a kit list before anything is priced.
Early notice also helps. When we know the dates well ahead, rehearsal time and build days can be arranged sensibly, and we are not asking people to cover a last-minute gap. Short notice is not penalised as a rule, but it limits how the crew can be planned, and a tighter plan has less slack to absorb surprises.
What I would ask you to bring to the first call is simple: the date and place, the stage plan if you have one, how many cameras you imagine, and where the pictures need to end up, whether that is a screen on site, a recording or a live stream.
How a quotation reaches you
Once we have the details, you receive a written quotation that lists the crew roles, the days, the kit and any travel, so each line can be read and questioned. If something looks larger than you expected, ask, and we will explain what it covers or whether a lighter option would do.
Booking is confirmed in writing, followed by an invoice paid by bank transfer, as set out on our prices and payment pages. Nothing is bought on the website itself; the first step is simply an enquiry through the contact page.
A fair quotation for outside broadcast crewing should read like a plan for your event, not a rate card with a guess attached. If ours does not, tell us, and we will go through it with you line by line.
The price of an outside broadcast crew follows the shape of your event: how many people it needs, for how long, with how much kit, and how far from our base. None of those factors is hidden, and each can be discussed before you commit. Send us the date, the place and a rough idea of the cameras, and we will come back with a written quotation that shows where every pound goes.
