I spent a couple of years working in a theatrical rental shop. We rented lighting, staging, special effects, cable, power distro, scenic draperies, etc.
I used to get calls, generally on Friday afternoon at about 4:30, asking "you went pawtee liite?" Excuse me? "you went pawtee liite?" Could you repeat that slowly? (finally figured out that they were asking "do you rent party light?")..
The answer is Yes, we do rent lights, that can be used for parties.. what are you trying to accomplish? how big a space? what sort of lghting do you want? what is your budget? when do you need the equipment?
I told them to come to the shop, we close at 5:30, so get here by 5, and bring somebody who speaks at least some english..
(not to bash non-english speakers.. I've dealt with theatre techs from Taiwan who spoke no english, with the aid of a student translator, and pretty much all I had to do was point at a few places on the sound patchbay before the guy gave me a double thumbs up, and started plugging in cables..)
It seemed like at 5:15 on friday was when everybody would show up to rent lights for the big party that weekend, and we'd have to spend 45 minutes getting their order pulled, and loaded out the door.. This was always the folks who had no clue what they wanted..
Then there was the regular customer who would call up at 4, saying that his client just called and wanted lighting for his event, and could we set him up with his usual package, and that he's be there close to 5:30.. (this wasn't so bad, since his package was quick to pull, and used equipment that wasn't used very often, so chances were that it was in the same state that it was in when he returned it last time..)
