Range fees for events

[Memnon]

How much do ranges charge organizers for events such as competitions and classes?

[Bob Hostetter]

Depends on the range, what kind of event, what day of the week. Some like Prado tend to charge a flat rate by the day, others like Raahauges charge by the head by the day. It depends on if you need the whole range or just a single berm. Most will add to that insurance, porta potties, range staff, and consumables.

I have paid for a one day event prices ranging from $1500 to $5000 a day. And remember a one day event means you set up, run the event, and teardown all in one day. If you need an additional day for set up, double your fees.

[SuperSet]

Classes usually pay a flat fee for X amount of days. For one bay, it can range from $150 - $400 per day.
Competitions usually have a fee per competitor, due to the range. Depending on the number of bays, you're looking at $10-$25 per person.

[Memnon]

So for a weekend 1 day class, just some rough numbers:

20 students, $250 each, $5k revenue

Profit at $2k range fee: $3k
Profit at $3k range fee: $2k

Let's say 4 instructors and staff. Not bad. I know there are marketing costs beforehand. Not bad for the range either. Would get a lot more for the same space than building a house and renting it out.

This is all just out of curiosity, interested in businesses in general.

[Bob Hostetter]

For a one day class assuming you can find an open weekend day at a range close to a solid population base such as Raahauges you are looking at $30 a head for students and staff. 20 students and 5 staff will run you $750. You will need your own target stands, staplers, staples, tape, targets, target sticks, water and food for your staff. You are going to have to pay your staff and probably provide ammo for them. They might do it for free once maybe twice but they can probably count too. Figure at least $100-150 each. You want quality people, they will make or break your rep. Probably should count on giving out some type of certificates as well.

Before the first one you will need to do dry runs a couple of times to get your timing down on your modules and to make sure all of your staff are telling the same thing to the students.

I don't know who you are so I don't know how famous you are but for smaller less famous school's 20 students at $250 is kind of tough to do for a one day class. You might want to look more at 10 students at $125 until you are more famous.

But, as your numbers show, there is money to be made in training. People like Massad Ayoub can and do charge a flat fee to the host of the class which for a 4 day class will easily exceed $10,000 plus expenses. That's why most pro shooter offer training, to pay the bills. But most smaller, regional school's never get close to that. It doesn't help that at least here in So Cal there are schools all over the place.

[Memnon]

Thanks, I was just interested as someone interested in business in general and I am not looking into instruction in the foreseeable future.

There seems to be good money in training, which hopefully attracts more development in the area.

In Norcal the bottleneck seems to be lack of ranges, which is somewhat surprising because most of the state is barren land just soaking up the sun.

[joelogic]

I would guess its not a good business unless you are a very large name. Guns/Ammo are very cyclical and I would guess so is training demand. Places go out of business when .223 goes to a buck a round. IMO, less than 1% of gun owners are actually avid students so there goes repeat business. Personally I have been training less because course round counts are so low.

/rant

[RoundEye]

To give you an idea of what the big names get, I spoke with Dave Sevigny at SHOT Show regarding a potential "private course", and he wanted $2400 for his time for a day (typically 8 hours). That doesn't include anything but the "talent".