“Hairballs”. This is a word that I’ve been using a lot lately. I am not even really sure what it means, except it is always on the tip of my tongue whenever we are on the road picking up or dropping off Timeraiser materials: it is very time consuming. We have easels, lights, tents, registration supplies, painting supplies, clocks, hammers, drills, and bubble wrap. Essentially, a van full stuff. This does not include all the other things that we have to rent each Timeraiser from party rental supply companies. Rentals such as tables, chairs, glassware, and linens.
Here is what work is required leading up and shortly thereafter a Timeraiser:
+ 3 Days = Pick-up artwork from corporate partners, wrap each work of art safely for transportation
+ 2 Days = Final confirmation with vendors about their drop off and pick up
+ 1 Day = Travel to storage locker, load van with supplies, including print material from Eva’s Print Shop, The Printing House or IDA Print
Show time = Timeraiser (12 hours of set-up, tear-down)
- 1 Day = Travel to storage locker, unload van with supplies
-2 Days = Drop off art to corporate partners
All, in all, lots of logistics. Logistics takes up about 15% of our time and energy to make sure things are delivered on time and where they are supposed to be. It also means that we are doing lots of calculations on whether to buy, rent or lease materials or supplies. For instance, do we rent easels at $10 per use or buy for $25 per easel, but get to use each easel 4 time per year (add storage cost of $250/year for 4 square feet of the storage)
- Lease Over three years = $20 x 10 x 3 years x 4 Timeraisers = $2,400
- Purchase Over three years = $25 x 10 = $250 + (10% locker space @ $2,000/year) x 3 years = $1,350
These are rough calculations, but illustrates a growing level of financial and logistics planning that our team is doing more frequently. We will be contacting seasoned professionals to look at our annual plans and logistics to weigh-in on our options to keep costs down while at the same time scaling the program.
