# Base Rate



## Footer (Aug 17, 2021)

General survey, what is the base hourly rate for a general stagehand in your area? No special skills, general load in/out types.


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## TimMc (Aug 17, 2021)

I picked $19 because it's kind of between the assistant rates for the PAC and arena. PAC users pay the City a premium fee on top of wages so the price is higher but the wage is not.


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## Aaron S. (Aug 25, 2021)

$25 an hour with a 4 hour mini. That’s at least what I want for non Union work.


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## TorrieS (Aug 25, 2021)

The survey doesn't go low enough for Florida.../sigh


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## josh88 (Aug 25, 2021)

Union house, $16 for general hands ($56 show pay), $20 for heads ($70 show pay)


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## BryceKastor (Aug 27, 2021)

In Toronto, Canada here. 
The going rate is $24.00 (~$19.00 USD) to $26.00 (20.50 USD).

There are of course the smaller companies that dip below $20.00 and outside of the City proper it drops. 
There has been a lot of interesting discussions locally during the pandemic around living wages (and Toronto is expensive) as well as quality of life in the industry


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## chawalang (Aug 31, 2021)

Something to consider is the kind of client a stagehand is working for. The base pay is very different depending on if it’s a regional theatre, major opera company, roadhouse, corporate client, film/TV shoot. It also depends if the position is covered under IATSE. In a Union setting you also have a percentage paid into medical benefits and a retirement of some kind. A percentage for vacation pay and parking could be included as well. A city I used to live in had all of the above and more. That base pay ranger from $16 and hour to $32 and hour.


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## mrtrudeau23 (Aug 31, 2021)

I say $18 for the Chicago area, but it varies around that about a dollar either way. There is currently a large push in the freelance community to increase it.


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## mrtrudeau23 (Aug 31, 2021)

BryceKastor said:


> In Toronto, Canada here.
> The going rate is $24.00 (~$19.00 USD) to $26.00 (20.50 USD).
> 
> There are of course the smaller companies that dip below $20.00 and outside of the City proper it drops.
> There has been a lot of interesting discussions locally during the pandemic around living wages (and Toronto is expensive) as well as quality of life in the industry


Same here in Chicago. One of the bigger Facebook groups for job postings in the city has a lot of push from members to increase the low limit on wages job postings must meet (currently at $15/hr, I think). It's also getting a lot of push now that Chicago's minimum wage is at $15/hr across the board. We've had a lot of people leave the industry from the freelance side due to lack of work (obviously) but also because of cost of living and not wanting to break themselves for minimum wage anymore. All of it totally justified in my opinion.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 31, 2021)

TorrieS said:


> The survey doesn't go low enough for Florida.../sigh


Starting for my job is ~$17/hr and that's managing a HS baby PAC plus booking/TD and teaching tech. That with benefits is still ahead of most of the other stuff I've seen around town.  Florida sucks.


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## gafftaper (Sep 1, 2021)

My school district pays $27.50 for an hourly stage tech which is around $6 less than the IATSE rate for the main city of Seattle contract which covers several major venues.


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## gafftaper (Sep 1, 2021)

More: We actually struggle to get technicians to join our hourly technician pool here in the school district because the rate is so much less than the rate of the main city contract plus there is a lot of red tape getting hired because you work around kids. Why would you drive a half hour to the other side of town to make $27.50 when you can work at the big venues for $34 an hour? 

Note the cost of living in Seattle is 49% higher than the national average. The cost of housing is 94% above the national average. So nobody is getting rich pushing crates at $34 an hour. They likely live 20-30 miles away from work in order to be able to afford housing.


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 1, 2021)

Do you all have a pool of kid workers or adult workers? Or both?


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## RonHebbard (Sep 1, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> Do you all have a pool of kid workers or adult workers? Or both?


In Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, IA129 had a pool of off-shift steel workers. Hamilton had several major employers, two of which were large steel mills; blast furnaces, coke ovens, manufacturing ingots, then rolling them through rolling mills, thinning them to specific gauges, trimming to specific widths, galvanizing, and re-rolling to specified lengths for shipping.

The steel mills, and several others, ran three 8 hour shifts daily ensuring there were always 2/3rds of their workers off shift.
For several decades the IA master carpenter in our 2,183 (When originally built) soft seater was a former steel worker. 

In the early 70's, the core membership had dwindled to ~20 elderly geezers between 65 and death. The Master Carpenter's father had been the BA for decades. 
In those days large shows like Shipstads & Johnson's Water Follies toured our nation by rail cars employing rail workers to off-load to teamsters who loaded trucks, drove them to a local stadium, then off-loaded the trucks to ~40 IA members who'd work 'round the clock under the stadium's lights, constructing their large pool and diving tower(s) with the goal of having it ready by sunrise for local firefighters to run hoses from hydrants to fill the pool in time for ~30 minutes practice / warmups before the first matinee. 

Typically there'd be 5 or 6 performances in three days. Senior IA geezers would roll in to operate carbon arc Supers for evening performances then depart leaving a fresh crew of steel workers to strike the pool and commence the loadout. 
Students? One or two, the BA's other son was working his way through university to become a high school teacher. 

How'd I get in? My high school sat 1,104, was the largest / cheapest non-union auditorium in town. I was in the 4 year 'Electrical Specialist' class and headed the student crew, running the auto transformer dimmers, the vacuum tube Bogen amplifier, and the rudimentary hemp pin rail. 
~6 times per year a show would come in wanting an IA crew. The aging BA would roll in at 1/2 hour, sit himself next to the house light dimmers, invoice the promoter, then leave (often during final bows) so he could get his van out of the parking lot before the patrons exited, and get a night's sleep before going to his regular job driving a dry cleaner's van collecting and delivering lady's and gentleman's finery. 

The BA lived a block from my parents home and thus knew me. I had no family in the local but knew at nine in grade four I wanted to spend my life in technical theatre or technical broadcast; I was still doing both when the mini-stroke felled me. As members of IA 1 put it when I toured into Broadway's Shubert as lead spot' operator: "You may find better, but you'll never spend more." My 2nd and 3rd spot op's both worked in network television beginning at 5 or 6 a.m. They both made it through previews, but opening night, one of my spot op's was sound asleep atop his scaffold in box seating with his head set on. No amount of hollering, not even his buddy spotting him in the face from across the house, roused him in time for his first cue. 
Fortunately reviewers rarely attend opening night; instead they attend the final preview the night before opening so their review can make press time for their morning edition.

Toodleoo! 
Ron Hebbard


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 6, 2021)

RonHebbard said:


> No amount of hollering, not even his buddy spotting him in the face from across the house, roused him in time for his first cue.


I know a few HS and ex-HS kids that could fit this bill!


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## RonHebbard (Sep 6, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> I know a few HS and ex-HS kids that could fit this bill!


I'm sure they were ex-HS kids as well.
To be fair, we had ZERO spot cues for the 1st 45 minutes of every performance.

Before the tech' rehearsal at every new venue, my opening speech to my two new spot op's was:
"I have good news and bad, which do you want first? The good news is there are no spot cues for the first 45 minutes, none at all.
The bad news is your first pickup is a tight head shot on a colored girl in a dead black out. The band plays in the black. The SM calls an automation cue for the up center wagon to travel down stage to its end point and the instant it stops, we each pick our girl in a tight head shot as they're stepping off the wagon and beginning their song and dance number. We open to full bodies as the scene lights come up. The SM will come on our channel and call our cue so we all hit together. An ASM will come out shortly and give us each our marks."

When we got to Broadway's Shubert, Chorus Line had played there forever and both my new op's had been with the show for many months.
As the SM, ASM, and I had come to expect, the local 1 op's said: "Marks? We don't need no phuquing marks, we're pro's."

We began our rehearsal and the first 45 minutes went well. The SM joined our channel and called our first cue. I hit the center girl as the other two danced unseen in the dead black out. I always enjoyed asking if there was a problem with their spots? Would they get their cues right the next time?? Are they sure they wouldn't like the ASM to give them their marks again??? Perverse geezer that I am, the moment never grew old.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard


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## TorrieS (Sep 9, 2021)

StradivariusBone said:


> Florida sucks.


Absolutely. I used to do the same thing, if it was 40 hours (when has it EVER been 40 hours) it came to about $14 an hour. Now (Arts college, teach lighting Y& sound, and I'm the go-to person for the facility) I make a whopping $24 with a MFA...again, assuming I'm only working 40 hours. Fortunately, I love my job, my coworkers & my students. (kick ass benefits though!)


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## StradivariusBone (Sep 10, 2021)

TorrieS said:


> Fortunately, I love my job, my coworkers & my students. (kick ass benefits though!)


That's what has me hanging on. I've never worked with better people, and I'm earning a pension, so it's not awful. One positive thing was the fact that we were moved from salaried, OT Exempt to hourly OT non-exempt two-ish years back. At least I can try to quit at 40 most of the time and when I can't it's actually compensated.


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