Events & Stage Rigging Financing | Scissor Lift Financing

Finance scissor lifts for event production and stage rigging companies. Indoor electric and wide-deck units for arena, venue, and festival work. Fund in 1-2 weeks.

Hanging a line array at 40 feet in an arena, setting a truss grid for a stadium floor show, or positioning follow spots in a 1,200-seat theater: each of these starts with a deck in the air and a rigger on it. The scissor lift is the piece of equipment that gets the first rigger to the first motor point, and it is on the call sheet for virtually every permanent installation, system check, and load-in that a rigging company runs. Companies that own their scissor lifts instead of renting them on every show save meaningfully over a full season, and those units hold their resale value well in the used market.

We fund scissor lifts for event production companies, stage rigging contractors, theatrical rigging firms, and concert production houses. The most common units in this market are electric slab scissor lifts in the 26-foot and 32-foot height classes for indoor arena work and outdoor-rated units for festival and stadium production. Application-only financing to $400k. Three months of bank statements is the standard document requirement. We fund in about two weeks, challenged credit reviewed.

The $50k floor covers a used 26-foot slab electric in solid condition. A two-unit package for a production company outfitting for a touring season typically falls in the $80k to $140k range, which lands squarely in our application-only window. Tell us the unit count, the height class, and the condition and we will have a same-day quote.

The Decks That Production Crews Actually Run

Indoor venue work, from a 500-seat performing arts center to a 20,000-seat arena, calls for a slab electric scissor lift almost exclusively. The reasons are the same across every venue: no exhaust, low noise during the rigging window before doors open, non-marking tires on finished arena floors, and a compact footprint that fits through a loading dock door and still maneuvers to a dead-center stage position.

The 32-foot working height class is the standard for arena floor production. A 32-foot electric scissor brings a rigger to the underside of a typical low-hang point at 28 to 30 feet of platform height, with enough arm reach to work the first motor attachment without a ladder extension. Units in this class include the JLG 3246ES and the Genie GS-3246, both with 800-pound deck ratings that handle a two-person crew with blocks and hardware.

For the increasingly common production format of a festival or outdoor concert with temporary stage structures, a rough-terrain unit with four-wheel drive is the right choice for soft or grass surfaces around a stage footprint. These units need to move quickly between motor points without track damage to the field surface. Wide-deck rough-terrain scissors give the rigging crew deck space for coiled slings and hardware without repositioning for every pick point.

Theatrical rigging in a fixed venue, such as a Broadway house, a performing arts center, or a regional theater, often operates with very specific height constraints set by the fly loft architecture. In those environments, a narrow-aisle scissor lift may be required to navigate the wing space and reach the batten work area without hitting the portal legs or the permanent rigging hardware. We fund those narrow configurations the same as standard-width units.

Who This Program Serves

Event production and stage rigging is a fragmented industry. Some companies operate as full-production houses with crews, equipment, and lighting inventory. Others are specialized rigging contractors who focus only on the overhead lift and motor work, leaving lighting, audio, and video to other vendors. Both business models use scissor lifts in the same way, and both qualify for our financing program.

Rigging contractors who work venues and arenas across a multi-city touring circuit and need owned lifts that travel with the production rather than relying on inconsistent local rental inventory at each stop.
Event production companies who manage full production builds for corporate events, trade shows, and product launches in hotel ballrooms, convention centers, and outdoor venues where a 26-foot slab electric is part of every advance call.
Theatrical rigging specialists who service regional theaters, opera houses, and performing arts centers on an installation and maintenance contract basis, and who need a reliable owned deck for regular venue visits.
Concert staging companies that supply temporary structure, deck, and rigging for touring acts and one-off festival productions and who benefit from owned equipment over rental when the utilization rate exceeds sixty or seventy days per year.

If your business falls into any of these categories and you are running rented lifts on most jobs, the math on ownership is worth reviewing. We can put together a same-day payment estimate based on the unit you are considering and your current monthly rental spend.

The Credit Review and What You Need

Event production companies frequently have non-standard financials compared to construction contractors. Revenue can be lumpy, with large show settlements in the touring calendar offset by quieter development periods. Bank statements capture this pattern more accurately than an annual tax return, which is one reason our process leads with three months of statements rather than a financial package.

The three months of statements we review should show consistent deposit activity that reflects the business's active operations. For a touring rigging contractor, that means show settlements and venue service payments coming in regularly. For a production company, it may mean event retainers, advance payments, and final settlements across overlapping projects. Both patterns are readable and both support an approval when the revenue is genuinely there.

We consider B and C credit in this market. A prior tax lien from a difficult touring season, a late payment history that has since been resolved, or a prior business difficulty is not an automatic decline. We look at the trajectory of the business as evidenced by the recent bank statements. A company operating cleanly today with strong recent deposits makes a fundamentally different credit case than one with active delinquencies, regardless of what the score says on the surface.

For transactions over $400k, a supplemental document package is required, but for most scissor lift purchases in the event production space, the deal stays comfortably under that threshold. One or two units, application-only, same-day decision, funded inside two weeks. That is the standard process for this market. For a B or C credit application, the process is the same; the approval rate is lower, but we tell you exactly where you stand after reviewing the statements.

Fund Your Production Deck Before the Season Books Up

Touring seasons and venue calendars fill early. Owning your scissor lifts means you are not calling rental yards during peak season load-in windows. We fund event production and rigging companies on scissor lifts from $50k, new or used, and most credits close inside two weeks. Three months of bank statements and a one-page application to get started. Application-only financing to $400k, no financial statements required. Quote today.

Questions operators ask

Clear answers before the lift moves.

Open a question for the practical details on equipment, documents, timing, and structure.

Our revenue comes in large show settlements that are months apart. Will irregular deposits affect the approval?

Irregular but substantial deposits are common in event production, and our review accounts for that pattern. What we look for is total deposit volume over three months that supports the payment obligation, not necessarily a steady weekly deposit schedule. A show settlement that more than covers several months of equipment payments in a single transfer is readable and supportable.

We rent our lifts at a local rental rate of $800 to $1,200 per week. Does it make financial sense to buy?

At that rental rate, a used 26-foot slab electric that costs $25,000 to $35,000 pays for itself in a single touring season of consistent use. A new unit costing on the order of $60k to $80k typically breaks even against rental costs within two to three active seasons. The exact calculation depends on your utilization, but for most production companies running the same height class more than 50 days per year, ownership beats rental by a meaningful margin.

Can I buy a lift from an international used market or an overseas production company?

We fund domestic purchases only. The unit needs to be located in the United States at the time of purchase. An import transaction where you are buying from an overseas seller and shipping the unit into the country is outside the scope of our program.

The show contract for our next tour is not signed yet. Can I apply for financing before we have paper?

You can apply based on your current bank statement history without needing a signed contract to support the application. The approval is based on your business's operating cash flow, not on a specific upcoming project. Once approved, the funding simply waits for you to identify the specific unit you want to purchase.

We want to do a sale-leaseback on two scissor lifts we own outright to generate cash for a production buildout. Is that possible?

Yes. Sale-leaseback transactions on owned scissor lifts are a common way for production companies to pull working capital out of the fleet without selling the equipment. You continue using the units; we fund against their market value. For two units with a combined value of $80k or more, the transaction is straightforward. Send us the make, model, year, and hours on each unit and we will quote the leaseback the same day.

Events & Stage Rigging

The Decks That Production Crews Actually Run

Who This Program Serves

The Credit Review and What You Need

Fund Your Production Deck Before the Season Books Up

Clear answers before the lift moves.

More scissor lift financing routes

Price this scissor lift package.