If you’ve ever asked a PA hire company for a price and got back a blank quote form instead of a number, you’re not alone. Most companies — including us — won’t put prices on the website. That’s not because we’re hiding anything. It’s because the same headcount can be five completely different jobs.
A 100-person speech in a hotel boardroom needs a couple of wireless mics and a small powered speaker. A 100-person outdoor wedding ceremony in a field needs a battery-powered system, weatherproofing, longer cable runs and a contingency plan for the wind picking up. Same audience, very different kit, very different price.
So instead of fake “from £” numbers, here’s what actually moves the price up and down. Read this before asking for a quote and you’ll get a more accurate one — and you’ll know whether the number you’re given is fair.
1. Audience size and venue type
This is the biggest single factor, and it’s two things in one. Audience size decides how much sound pressure (volume, basically) the system needs to produce — a 50-person room and a 500-person room need different rigs even if they’re both indoors.
Venue type decides what kind of system. A reverberant church needs different speakers from a soft-furnished function suite. An outdoor field with no walls to bounce sound off needs roughly twice the wattage of the same audience indoors. A long, narrow marquee needs distributed speakers down its length, not one big stack at the front.
When you ask for a quote, tell us both: how many people, and where. “120 in the orangery at Rhinefield House” gives us much more to work with than “120 people”.
2. Indoor vs outdoor
Outdoor jobs are almost always more expensive than the indoor equivalent, and not by a small margin. There are good reasons for that:
- More amplification (no walls or ceilings helping the sound)
- Weather protection — covers, tents, contingency
- Longer cable runs across grass or hardstanding
- More power infrastructure, often with a generator
- Sometimes a stage or tower
- Higher contingency for things going wrong (rain, wind, generator failure)
If your event is outdoors and the budget doesn’t quite stretch, ask whether a marquee or covered area would change the spec. Sometimes it does.
3. Engineer or dry hire
A “wet hire” includes an experienced engineer to set up, sound check, mix the show, and pack down at the end. A “dry hire” is just the kit — you (or your team) operate it.
Dry hire is cheaper, sometimes substantially so. It’s the right call if you’ve got a competent engineer of your own, like an in-house AV manager, a touring band’s FOH engineer, or a regular sound tech you trust.
It’s the wrong call if the answer to “who’s going to mix it?” is “we’ll figure that out on the day”. A bad mix on good kit sounds worse than a good mix on basic kit, and we’ve been called in to rescue plenty of events where someone well-meaning was out of their depth. The engineer day-rate is usually a small fraction of your total event budget — it’s the wrong place to economise.
4. The specific kit list
Within “PA hire” there’s a huge range. Some of the things that bump the price up:
- Line array systems — what you’ll see at any decent festival or concert. More expensive than point-source PAs because the kit is more expensive and takes longer to rig.
- In-ear monitors (IEMs) — preferred by professional musicians but adds RF complexity and per-musician cost.
- Wireless microphone count — every additional channel of RF needs its own receiver, frequency coordination and a backup. Eight wireless mics costs significantly more than two.
- Recording or live-streaming feeds — clean splits, recorders, encoders.
- Stage monitoring with multiple mixes — bigger console, more wedges or IEMs, more time on the line check.
Tell us what you actually need. If you’re not sure, describe the show — “rock band, full backline, four vocalists, in-ears, recording for the band’s archive” — and we’ll spec it.
5. Distance, access and duration
Where the venue is matters. Events within Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and west London are the easiest for us — short transport, no overnight crew. Further afield costs more because of mileage, longer crew days, and sometimes overnight accommodation.
Access at the venue matters too. A loading bay next to the stage is the cheapest scenario. A 200m push down a gravel track to a marquee in a field needs more crew time and sometimes a Land Rover. We’ll always do a site visit for anything non-standard, which is included in the quote.
Duration affects price linearly: a 2-hour conference is one job, a 3-day festival is much bigger because of crew shifts, overnight security on the kit, and the wear and tear of running a system for 36 hours straight.
6. Power and infrastructure
For most indoor events, mains is fine and we just plug in. For larger or outdoor events you need to know:
- How much power is available?
- What kind of connections (13A, 16A, 32A, 63A three-phase)?
- Where are the sockets relative to where the PA is going?
If the venue can’t supply the power you need, we’ll spec a generator. That’s an extra line item but it’s the right call — the worst thing that can happen at a live event is the power dropping out mid-show.
If you’re not sure what the venue has, ask them — or ask us to ask them. It’s a five-minute call that prevents a lot of headaches.
7. Time of year and lead time
Summer is the busiest season for outdoor events, and weekend rates in June, July, August and September are the highest of the year. December gets busy too with corporate Christmas parties.
Lead time also matters. A booking three to six months out gives us flexibility — we can plan crew, hold kit, line everything up. A booking three weeks out means we’re juggling other jobs, paying premium rates to get crew in, and may have to sub-hire kit to fulfil it. Late bookings cost more.
If you can plan ahead, you should. If you can’t, just tell us — we’d rather give you a fair late-booking price than have you assume we can’t help.
8. What’s not in the price
A good quote includes everything you need on the day: kit, crew, delivery, set-up, de-rig, PAT-tested equipment, public liability insurance, and method statement / risk assessment if you need them. There shouldn’t be surprise extras.
Things that aren’t usually in a PA hire price (but you might think they are):
- Lighting — usually a separate quote, sometimes a separate company.
- Video / projection — same.
- Power infrastructure beyond what the venue provides — generators, distribution, cabling. We can supply or recommend, but it’s a separate line item.
- Stages and rigging — small risers we might have, full stages we won’t.
- PRS for Music licence — you organise that with PRS directly if your event is public-facing with music.
Ask up front. Any decent supplier will tell you exactly what is and isn’t included.
How to get an accurate quote in one email
If you want a tight, accurate price first time, send us this:
- Date of the event
- Venue (name and town)
- Number of people
- Indoor or outdoor
- What’s happening: speeches, live band, DJ, ceremony, awards, etc.
- Start and finish times
- Anything unusual — outdoor in March, very specific kit request, recording, multiple stages
That’s enough for us to come back with a real number, not a placeholder. The whole exchange usually takes one round of email.
Ready to talk?
If you’ve got an event on the horizon and want a quote rather than another guide, tell us about it here — we’ll come back within one working day with a proper number and a clear breakdown of what’s included.