Enquiry
An enquiry needs the venue, the dates including get-in and get-out, the audience number, and the nature of the production. Anything else (a technical rider, a venue technical specification, a stage plan) makes the answer better and faster.
Specification and quotation
The equipment list follows from the specification exercise rather than preceding it. A quotation sets out what is included, the hire period it covers, what is charged separately, and what the hirer is expected to provide (power, access, rigging points, storage, and labour where that's not part of the hire).
Preparation
Equipment is prepared before it leaves: functionally tested, inspected, electrically tested where applicable, firmware and presets checked to the correct revision, and packed with the cabling and ancillaries the system actually needs. Kit that arrives without the one adaptor it depends on is useless, and preparation is where that's caught.
Delivery and collection
Where and when equipment arrives is agreed in advance, along with what happens at the other end. Access matters as much as it does anywhere else: a venue with a lift that won't take a flightcase, or a get-in through a single fire door, changes how the job is loaded.
Responsibility during the hire
Equipment on hire remains the owner’s property. The hirer has possession and is responsible for it: for its safe keeping, for using it as intended, and for loss or damage while it's out. That's the ordinary position in equipment hire, and it's the reason the next paragraph matters.
Insurance
Hired-in plant cover is the hirer’s responsibility unless something different has been agreed in writing. Production equipment reaches substantial replacement values very quickly, and it's worth confirming that a policy actually covers hired equipment, at the values involved, in the situations involved (in transit, in a venue overnight, and outdoors if the event is outdoors).
Return
Equipment is checked in against the list it went out on and inspected for damage. Shortages and damage are notified rather than discovered later. Cabling returned as it was packed rather than as a heap isn't a courtesy; it's the difference between the next job being prepared properly and not.
Cross-hire
Where a requirement calls for something outside what is held, it's cross-hired from another company in the trade. This is normal and universal (no hire company owns everything) and it's disclosed rather than concealed. What matters to a hirer is that the equipment arrives, is the right specification, and is covered by clear terms.
Terms
The hire period, the charges, the responsibility for loss and damage, and the insurance position are set out in writing for the particular hire. Nothing on this website is an offer, a quotation or terms of business.