Hire A Contractor When…
You’re hanging things overhead. Very few church tech staff are truly qualified to hang hundreds (or thousands) of pounds of speakers or other stuff over people’s heads. And even if you are, why would you want the liability?
Even for our kids remodel, I hired a contractor to fly the loudspeakers and hang the TVs. I could have done it, but I don’t want to take the risk that anything could go wrong.
Time is tight. Some projects have very tight timelines and the in-house staff doesn’t have the bandwidth to get it done. This is a perfect contractor job. They can bring in additional installers who do this every day, and will probably do better work in less time. This year for our remodel, I’m having an integrator do some of the work because we’ll be short-staffed, and I won’t have the time.
Manpower is limited. A solo technical director will probably have a tough time installing a complete A/V/L system by himself. Even if he can pull in some volunteers, it’s going to be a long, hard install. Churches that don’t have professionals on staff will almost always come out ahead when they hire a reputable contractor.
The church wants to protect it’s staff. Some churches are wise enough to know that pushing the staff to the limit all the time will not result in long-term employees who are committed to the organization. Sometimes it’s a smart call to let your highly-qualified, fully-capable tech staff leave at 5 while someone else does the install.
As a church leader, would you rather have energized, fully-engaged and excited or tired, disengaged and aggravated staff? You make the call.
Sometimes a hybrid approach is best; install what you can and bring in a contractor for the rest. I generally recommend hiring the rigging, because it’s just safer.
But pulling cables, installing amp racks, consoles, patch bays and the like can easily be handled in-house, especially if the install company has helped with the design, making sure things are well thought out.
This decision-making process is not hard, but it should not be taken lightly. It’s almost never as easy as “We’ll save so much money…” so be sure to think it through. You may find that at the end of the project, everyone will be better off if the install was handled by professionals. Or maybe not.
Mike Sessler is the Technical Director at Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, CA. He has been involved in live production for over 20 years and is the author of the blog, Church Tech Arts . He also hosts a weekly podcast called Church Tech Weekly on the TechArtsNetwork.