The Cost of Owning It

Smart car shoppers consider both the cost of buying it and the cost of owning it.

Why isn’t that a more standard step for our exhibitions? *

Cost of buying it: the average monthly payment on a new car is about $735 / month right now.

Youch.

Cost of owning it: don’t forget gas, repairs, maintenance, tires, registration, fees, taxes, insurance, and depreciation. In the case of a car, all that can be nearly as high as that payment.

Double youch.

We don’t replace tires in exhibitions. We replace projectors, pushbuttons, and outdated text. But our plans can cause far bigger, less-obvious ownership costs:

If our concept relies on fresh content, we just necessitated a curator staff position. If our exhibition depends on live spiders, we just necessitated a contract with a spider … uh … store?

Is everyone truly reckoning with all those future costs in our project? Do we have the right people in the room to discuss the long-term implications of arachnid supply?

Here’s the thing:
It is hard enough to manage the capital costs of our projects. And harder to also predict future costs. But if we don't, we’ll visit in a few years, and we won’t like what we see.

Consider the cost of owning it.

Warmly,
Jonathan

* P.S. Here’s a reason this might be true: in car shopping, the person choosing it, the person buying it, and the person who will pay for all the fuel and repairs when they own it — are all the same person, and it’s their own money on the line. While in the exhibitions business, those can be three (or ten) completely different people. What do you think? Hit REPLY and LMK.