Pricing
The hidden hours in a $750 show.
A client sees a 45-minute show and a $750 price and does the math: "a thousand dollars an hour — nice work." You know better. The 45 minutes on stage is the smallest part of the day. Here's the part nobody bills for — and why the gigs that look most profitable sometimes aren't.
What a 45-minute show actually costs you
Take a typical away gig: 40 minutes each way, half an hour to set up, the 45-minute show, 20 minutes to tear down, and the emails, contract and invoice around it. Draw it to scale and the "45-minute show" all but disappears:
Suddenly $750 isn't $1,000 an hour. It's a bit over $200 an hour — before fuel, wear, and the risk that a nearer, easier gig had to be turned down to protect the drive. That's still a fine rate. But it's a very different number, and it's the number you should be pricing and scheduling against.
You're not occupied from 7 to 8pm. You're occupied for travel → setup → show → teardown → travel. Price the whole footprint, not the stage time.
Three ways the hidden hours change your decisions
1. Distance is a pricing input, not an afterthought. Two shows at the same fee are not the same gig if one is 20 minutes away and the other is 90. A travel line on the quote isn't greedy; it's accurate.
2. Back-to-back bookings can be physically impossible. A 2pm forty minutes away and a 4pm the other direction looks fine on a calendar and falls apart in the car. The footprint — not the show length — is what has to fit.
3. Setup-heavy shows deserve a floor. If your circus day is 30 minutes of setup and 20 of teardown, a short "quick" version isn't quick for you. Package and price it so the footprint is covered.
Make the software do the math
This is exactly why ActBook reserves your whole footprint on the calendar — setup, show, teardown — and adds the real driving time between gigs, so it will never offer a client a slot you can't physically make. When a show is packaged with its setup and running time, the price and the protected time on your calendar line up automatically. The hidden hours stop being hidden.
Practical gig-business notes, occasionally.
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