Hey folks! I'm looking to start up a rehearsal studio in my area. There are a couple of other hourly studios in town but we definitely have room for more in certain parts of the Valley.

This studio will be hourly. Looking at 6 rooms. Will supply quality backline and will expect to invest in marketing to drive the business.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with occupancy numbers? Just a ball park? What kind of occupancy can someone opening an hourly rehearsal studio expect? Approximate how many studio hours a month can one expect given a good amount of advertizing, failry good size room and quality backline in each room - in other words, it will be a good experience that people will talk about. Any ideas on how many hours per studio per month we could expect?

Thanks!

That really varies so enormously, that any info would be impossible. It really is a 'Suck-it-and-see!' situation.

One thing I can add, is you should take a long hard look at additional services and sales of things like drum skins, sticks, guitar strings, cable and plugs, as well as drinks and some snacks. You can also add tuition.

Don't bother with recording, that will only put your costs through the roof! Better still, form a relationship with a nearby studio to take over that side of the business.

I've done several rehearsal room installs and maintenance contracts and found that this almost never works.

I mean, take your Wednesday evening session. Reasonably busy - all rooms booked out from 6pm - 11pm, £9/hour - your rehearsal room makes £270 a night. Happy days.

But then there's this shop business. You're going to want to pay the shop assistant £7/hour - so you're £35 down. Do you take £35 a night? Quite possibly not. Musicians are usually hard up, and if they've any sense will buy strings and picks and drum skins in bulk from the internet. You'll need to sell £100 worth of stuff, every night, to make enough profit just to pay the person selling it. That's £17 per band. I don't see it happening.

The only 2 ways you can sell things really and make any money are:
- Do it on account. Leave an emergency tool kit in every rehearsal room and if somebody busts a guitar string they can take one out of the box, providing they pay off their account afterwards. You can obviously take deposits etc so that they can't get into debt with you.

- Get a vending machine. The old skool sort that sells everything from canned drinks to chocolate bars, with the little spiral wire things that rotate to drop the goods into the bottom. You can get packs of guitar strings in those, envelopes with picks in, patch leads for pedals etc. Obviously filling it with snacks won't do you any harm either. A bottles vending machine for fizzy drinks can also work. I know rehearsal rooms who've put canned beer in them on the sly, people sweating buckets in a rehearsal room will pay good money for a cold can of lager that can be obtained quite cheaply by the slab in the cash & carry.



Staffed shops just don't make the money, unless you are in the studio anyway. But most of the rehearsal rooms I work with are unattended, and have a daytime caretaker.

When you say "room for more" do you mean you have more bands than practice space - to the point that bands can't get time? Or do you just mean, there's only 2 and every town should have 3?

These figures you are asking for should ultimately be what allow you to decide if there is room for one more or not. So saying "there is room, now what figures can we expect" is a bit backwards. It's like saying "This jacket will fit you, what are your measurements?"

Focussing on marketing is definitely a good thing. As I said in my above post I have installation and maintenance contracts with a few rehearsal room and I would say that normally the priorities list goes:

(TOP)
1- Backline
2- PA
3- Comfort
4- Marketing
99- Power

The harsh reality of it is that the actual order of priorities should be:

(TOP)
1- Marketing
2- Comfort
3- Power
4- PA
5- Backline

1- Marketing - If people don't know you're there, there's no point. So marketing has to come top. The right marketing expertise will let you sell sand to the arabs and ice to the eskimos. The wrong marketing, and you can't give it away. People are suckers for marketing. That's why they buy crap music, clothes that make you look stupid, haircuts that look like an accident with a lawnmower, and burgers that contain more tyre rubber than cow. So get somebody who knows what they're doing... don't just print flyers and hand them out.

2- Comfort - I have been in a band. And I have been a studio engineer. And I can tell you with complete honest that I have been in some real dumps. And nothing kills the creative juices better than a hot stinky stuffy room in a basement with no windows. There are no end of rehearsal rooms out there which are too small for anything more than a solo musician... with black carpet glued to the walls, horrible fluro strip lights, and a single pedestal fan for temperature control. Nobody wants to spend a day in one. Make sure your rooms are a proper size - don't sacrifice it to build more rooms. Make sure the rooms have nice lighting - if it's not natural daylight, a couple of TV fresnels are about the next best thing. A little LED mood lighting on the walls won't do you any harm either... LED tape is dead cheap and with a bit of imagination can really change how a room looks. Make sure every room has enough seating for a 4-5 piece band to all sit down. AIR CON IS NOT OPTIONAL. Proper HVAC I mean, not a de-humidifier in the corner.

3- Power. Get it right first time. Get an electrician to install multiple power points around each room, with cabling in proper conduit or cable tray. Structure your breakers properly, so somebody in Room A with a dodgy guitar amp doesn't trip out the PA in Room B. I put it as '99' in the usual list, because a lot of people simply pay it no attention at all. They just use whatever sockets the building had to begin with, and extend it out with 4-way plug boards.

4- PA - The reason I put this above backline is because ultimately if the band don't like your backline they'll bring their own. This isn't an option with a PA. Now rehearsal room PAs are a bug bear of mine. Why on God's earth to people put big 2x15+HF PA speakers in them? Do you see musicians on stage with them? Or do you see them with wedges on the floor? Right. So if that's what they're going to use on stage, why wouldn't you have them in the studio? It makes no sense. Get yourself 6 big beefy bomb proof wedges - Martin LE400s would be a good start. And a sub for the drummer. A simple but decent sounding mixer is a must. Use the aux outs so they can have different mixes. 4 auxes is ideal for most bands. Use amps that are bigger than they need to be, not the other way round. A 500W amp will kill a 600W speaker easier than a 600W amp will kill a 500W speaker. Most people think it's the opposite. QSC are probably your perfect brand. And then get proper speaker management - something you can get a sound engineer to set up for you. I like the old green Soundweb units because their functionality is completely programmable. And they don't use XLR or Jack I/O - so there is no way for the band to bypass them. And they can be connected to the internet - so you can sit in your lounge and turn the band down if they're taking the irishman.

5- Backline. Like I said above, if they don't like it, they'll bring their own. Personally I like the studios with pooled backline, that bands can book for their session. It's much better than second guessing what people will want. If you have 6 studios - 15 guitar amps at minimum. So you know, 4 Marshall 4 Fender 2 Orange 2 Mesa 2 Vox, or whatever. 7 bass amps (6, +1 to cover faulty amp down time) - again mix up the manufacturers. Drum kits are more of a pain to move, so leave them in the rooms, have hireable snare drums and cymbals for bands without their own. Put the amps in wheeled flight cases, they're less prone to damage when moved around, and much easier to move at that.

I hope this is of some help, I can be hired as a consultant if you don't want to make all the mistakes other people make and run the best room in the area!

Need consulting. How do I get your contact info??

Here, you do zero marketing and never have an unfilled rehearsal room...but real estate is very scarce here...

Weird to think that anywhere would need marketing for a rehearsal space

Hey, check out the bandspace website. It has loads of info about music rehearsal spaces, including the do's & don't when setting one up.