Need some guidance on costs

[True North]

This relates to my earlier thread regarding my daughters school needing a sounding for their school performances. They have been using a DJ!! for the past couple of years and while he is a nice guy he doesen't know what he is doing and really does not have the appropriate equiptment.

Originally they were going to try and buy their own system and I was offered by my wife to help consult them on their purchase.

After thinking about things for a few days i am leaning heavily towards telling them to hire a production company to come in, set up and do sound. My reasoning is quite simple, they can easily cover the production costs by charging a small cover at the door and in turn they won't have to deal with the hassles of maintaining,setting up and tearing down their own system. The single biggest factor also being that they would need to hire someone experienced to run the system even if they did have their own system.

Anywho, I have a couple of questions;

1 - does anyone know of any reputable production companies in the Greater Toronto Area for this type of gig?

2 - What do you think the costs would be for PA, basic Lights, setup, teardown and FOH engineer for a small gymnasium based production?

Thanks