Planners usually arrive holding a guest count and a budget cap, and the tier decision is where those two numbers meet. Here's the comparison we walk through on calls, in table form first:
| Tier | Caps | Open hours | Patch wall | Sweet spot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Setlist | 100 | up to 3 | 24 designs | 120–180 invite-list guests |
| The Double Rack | 200 | up to 4 | 36 designs | 250–400 guests |
| The Full Wall | 400 | up to 6 | 48 + custom run | Conferences, festivals, multi-day |
Why hours and caps are paired
Each tier is sized so the press lane can genuinely finish the rack inside the window — 100 caps across three hours is a comfortable single-lane pace, 400 across six assumes added pressing capacity at peak. Buying more caps than your hours can press just strands inventory at teardown; the pairing protects you from that.
Case one where the obvious tier is wrong: the compressed window
A 350-guest gala says Double Rack — until you learn the bar only opens during a 90-minute cocktail hour. Ninety minutes on one lane is ~75–90 caps, period. The fix isn't a bigger package; it's a second press lane inside the same tier, which costs less than jumping to Full Wall and actually solves the constraint.
Case two: the open-gate event
Street fairs and fan zones have no guest list, so tiers stop being forecasts and become budget ceilings. Here the right move is often to buy the tier you can afford, post "while supplies last," and let scarcity end the activation on schedule. The festival playbook covers the layout that keeps the final hour orderly.
What moves the price inside a tier
Local staffed packages start around $5,000 in the OC/LA/SD core. From there the levers are crew hours ($250/hr across your approved schedule), a flat $900 travel adder beyond Southern California, and optional lines like custom patch runs or a live tee lane. Full inclusion detail sits on the pricing page.
Add-ons worth their line item — and two that usually aren't
Three extras earn their cost at most events. A second press lane is the highest-leverage line on the sheet whenever the open window is tight; it roughly doubles throughput for far less than a tier jump. A custom patch run (your mark in chenille or woven) lifts pick-up rates on every cap it touches. And the live engraving station — leather blanks personalized with names on the spot — turns the bar into two attractions for one footprint. The two we routinely talk planners out of: extending open hours past the point where the room empties (a dead final hour is billed like a busy one), and premium cap upgrades across the entire rack when upgrading just the top fifty caps gives VIPs the nicer lid without carrying the cost through the whole order.
Logistics by tier: space, power, and load-in
Every tier fits a 10x10 footprint and runs on a single standard 120V 20A circuit per press — no generators, no venue electrician, though we do ask that the circuit not be shared with the caterer's coffee urns, the one appliance that trips more breakers than any other neighbor. Load-in is 60 minutes for The Setlist and closer to 90 for Double Rack and Full Wall, all before doors. The Full Wall's second press adds one more circuit and a wider rack line, which matters in ballroom pre-function spaces where columns eat clearance. Send a floor plan with your inquiry and the crew marks its own placement; details live in the space and power answer.
Reading the quote when it lands
Our quotes are itemized on purpose, and the review takes five minutes if you know what to check. Confirm the cap count and tier match your latest attendance forecast, not the optimistic number from the first call. Check the open window printed on the schedule block — that window, not the event's run time, is what staffing is priced against. Verify the patch wall line lists your custom designs by name if you ordered any. Final counts adjust up to a week out without drama; inside a week, cap increases depend on stock. Nothing books until you approve in writing, and the pricing page mirrors every inclusion so there are no quote-only surprises.
One habit worth borrowing from our repeat bookers: forward the quote to whoever controls the run-of-show before signing. Half of all tier changes we process trace back to a schedule detail the planner learned late — the bar's window moving from four hours to two, or a second ballroom opening. Cheap to fix on paper, expensive to fix on the day.
Paste your guest count and schedule into the date checker and we'll return the tier call with reasoning, not just a number.