John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

I am a student putting together a business plan as a project for small biz management class and I need some info. If anyone can help me out it would be greatly appreciated. I am looking to base this business in pensacola florida, so if you have info related that area or Florida at all that is even better, if not, just give me what you got. If you have a business plan for your own business as well that you are willing to share it would definately help me in putting mine together. This is a "fake" business and any info provided will be used for the sole purpose of assisting with this project.

1. What are the going rates for studio time per hour? (or what are your rates if you are not aware of competitors prices)

2. I had the idea to offer price packages as well, do alot of studios do this... or is it sort of an innovation right now?

3. What is the competition like?

4. How do you advertise and market your product?

5. How beneficial is your online presence (if you have a website)?

6. What additional services do you offer, such as design and reproduction, on-call musicians and vocalists, promoting, and publishing... do you think they give you a competitive advantage? Or are these additional services pretty much standard accross the board?

7. What kind of start up costs are involved in opening a recording studio?

Any other info that you recall might have helped you when you began start-up of your business that you can provide would also be appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,
Leighann

Geoff Daking (who builds studio equipment) has a spreadsheet for startup costs ( http://www.daking.com/index2.html )

http://www.daking.com/Excel%20Tape%20OP ... 20Budg.xls

You should find the TapeOP interview where he takes you through using the spreadsheet.

Another source I found usefull was "Audio Recording for Profit : The Sound of Money by Chris Stone, David Goggin " I'm sure you will find it in the library or used at Amazon cheap.

What I really want to pass on is that running a recording studio is a labor of love tha few sane people will succeed at if money is the only motivation. Big studios are in the real estate business - if you have on samll room at an indie studio, you can only bill one client at a time. The larger (usually better financed) studios have at least 3 rooms to bill time in every day.

And if you read Chris Stone's book, you will realise his advice is to run studio rentals, TV post, rentals and office services so you are protected by multiple revenue streams.

Geoff Daking's final advice was "if you run these numbers you will see it's better to opena chinese restaurant."

Enjoy your project, and e-mail me if I can help further

D.C.Patterson

seertone@yahoo.com

P.S. I ran a studio in Houston, Texas - I make more money in the film industry.