In the rental and staging portion of our industry, we’ve always had to absorb the cost of a lot of inventory that we didn’t get to create line-item charges for. Cases, protective gear, cable ramps, some cabling types… the list goes on.

How many of you are now seeing that the falling price of electronics — projectors and flat-panel monitors especially — are starting to produce a norm where the devices’ road case and accessories cost more than the device?

This hasn’t been unheard of in our industry. In running a staging company with a lot of international business, it was actually fairly common. I asked Riverview’s owner, Chris Thorne, about it just once, when I saw a couple of $200 items that were being shipped in $400 road cases. His reply? “Ever try finding another one in a hurry in Taiwan?”

But today, with a lot of items, it is becoming the rule rather than the exception. I’ve always tried figuring rental rates based on the total cost of a unit as sent to the field, including its case and accessory package, but sometimes it has led to rental rates clients question because they approach, or even exceed, the retail cost of the item. But the costs are also too big to be simply absorbed into operations. In the staging industry, we are often able to price by the show rather than by the item — but for those of you in the general or facility rental business, how are you dealing with it?

JRR