Practice Room rates...

MDKV

Just a bit of market research!

How much do you normally pay for practice rooms? Seems like £30 - £40 for a 4 hours slot is average for where I am in Sussex.  

My band mates and I are thinking of opening up our own place after being involved in the running of some over the past few years. 
We're thinking free wi-fi is a must - any other suggestions? Gear hire? Gear storage cages? 

daveyh

A popular one near here is £3 per hour

not_the_dj

daveyh said:

A popular one near here is £3 per hour

Blimey, that's cheap. Is that just a room, or a room with amps/pa/kit in?

MDKV

not_the_dj said:

daveyh said:

A popular one near here is £3 per hour

Blimey, that's cheap. Is that just a room, or a room with amps/pa/kit in?

£3!! That's well cheap.  Where is that? 

meltedbuzzbox

I pay £15 and the room is mine from 6pm until whenever.

Includes all amps, full drums and PA etc. Even has a mobile aircon unit

lustycourtier

Why is wifi a must?

not_the_dj

No wonder it's popular!

We actually use a village hall that works about about £3 each (between 4) for as long as we want. But we have to take all our gear.

Haven't been to the proper places in Birmingham for a while, but they were approaching £10 an hour for a fully kitted out room.

David5150

11 quid an hour - decent PA in aircon and sound-treated room

MDKV

lustycourtier said:

Why is wifi a must?

Internets. 

Danny1969

I have 2 large rooms with aircon, free wifi, free green room with 50" plasma and internet TV, free tea and coffee

We supply free drums (just bring breakables) free cabs and combos from Marshall, Vox and Fender. Some bands walk in just clutching guitars, sticks and cymbals

We charge £12 an hour and got no problem with takers. I only wish we got as much recording work as we do practice sessions. 

Look hard at the costs of running it though. My place 2020studios.co.uk cost (per month) 2K in rent, 1K in rates then you got your gas, electric, alarm monitoring, water rates etc. 

ICBM

If you're going to be doing backline-equipped rooms, do some research first on what is *reliable* and not going to cost you a fortune in repairs. Don't assume buying new with a warranty is any good either, if the amps are always away being repaired you'll need too many spares. Don't be swayed into buying gear that's fashionable, get what works and stays working even if some of the punters will turn up their noses at it. If they do, they can bring their own.

Rehearsal rooms are the toughest environment there is for gear, especially the less than full pro level stuff which is all most rehearsal studios can budget for. Basically it's going to get thrashed for several hours a day by people who don't own it and often neither know nor care how to use it properly.

It's probably worth getting cabs so they can bring their own heads too, but make sure they're capable of taking any realistic power of amp, or you'll get blown speakers.

EricTheWeary

Just looked at the site of my favourite - £10 to £15 per hour dependant on the room. Includes copious amounts of nasty tea/ coffee. I like it because it doesn't smell, the rooms are a reasonable size, equipment is properly maintained, there are no stairs and they are helpfull. Some of the Birmingham ones have a semi captive audience being in student areas so places that are a bit more out of the way seem to have to work harder for your money.

Danny1969

Oh, and we got HK PA systems in both rooms with Soundcraft desks. Decent PA, large rooms and aircon are my best selling points I think. 

nickp

I think we pay about £35 for an evening in a smelly small hot little room with a dodgy PA

guitarfishbay

We go between facilities based on availability, in Manchester.

The place we like is £8 p/h small room, £10 p/h large room, backline is £2 p/h bass amp and £3 p/h drums.  This place has a good loud PA system and is acoustically treated, including double doors, so you can actually hear yourselves both when playing and when talking.  It is also kept very clean.  There is storage here but the waiting list is pretty long - unsurprisingly.  You also have to do block bookings to qualify for the storage, you aren't allowed to have storage if you're not regularly using the facility.

When it is full, the place we don't like as much costs £25 for a 4 hour session, all backline included.  However the PAs are underpowered, the backline is usable at best, the rooms are poorly treated (you can really hear the band next door plus there is too much echo going on in the room IMO), and they are just not very clean.  We used to do a deal there for £100 per month with free storage, but the storage had a damp problem and we got sick of the poor quality PA.  So now we only go back on an as needed basis when the other facility has no availability.

MDKV

Thanks all for your comments.  Some of the smelly room stories are what's making me want to open up somewhere that's just a nice clean environment! 

gusman2x

£35 a 4 hour evening session. Everything's included if you want it, but there's only one decent guitar amp. so I take mine. Size is good, but it's too warm. PAs OKish. Like it well enough. Last place reuarly smelt of piss.

PolarityMan

We pay £30 for 4 hours, drum kit and PA included although we don;t use the drum kit. We used to get a fiver discount for bringing our own PA but we got lazy in the end and started using the provided one.

Room isn't fantastically treated but parking is very convenient (our other fallback places are all a massive pain in the ass).

Would pay more but only if the facilities were good, ie/ PA big enough for more than just vocals, nicely treated etc.

We're not really interested in provided backline beyond PA tbh as we bring all our own stuff but if you have a student population in the area you might pick up those who want to travel on public transport.

PolarityMan

Danny1969 said:

I have 2 large rooms with aircon, free wifi, free green room with 50" plasma and internet TV, free tea and coffee

We supply free drums (just bring breakables) free cabs and combos from Marshall, Vox and Fender. Some bands walk in just clutching guitars, sticks and cymbals

We charge £12 an hour and got no problem with takers. I only wish we got as much recording work as we do practice sessions. 

Look hard at the costs of running it though. My place 2020studios.co.uk cost (per month) 2K in rent, 1K in rates then you got your gas, electric, alarm monitoring, water rates etc. 

We really need to try out your second room at some point for recording as it's pretty much on our door step

shuikit

One place that we used to use offered a storage space (small locked room/cupboard) either for a separate weekly fee or as part of a deal say if you booked a regular slot for a few months.  I can't remember the exact details now but I remember at the time thinking it seemed like a good way to hook people in regularly.  Not sure about insurance implications etc...

DartmoorHedgehog

Where we practice (Plymouth) it's £22 for 6pm to 10pm slot, slightly cheaper for the afternoon session I think.  Room with vocal PA and aircon.  Mics, stands and leads available for no charge, amps and cabs available for £4 per session, but we normally take our own.