Markey’s Audio-Visual

Being my first time using Markey’s, it was really not a very good experience. I’m not asking for perfect rentals, but I do expect them to be working before opening night.
I SM’d a production that needed 7 wireless headsets and 4 wired, which would covered the fly operator, SM, backstage, sound, runners, etc. I called a week in advance to put the headsets on hold until tech week, which was not a problem. When I went to pick them up, I called ahead to ensure that they would be ready when I arrived. They still took 10 – 15 minutes to get my order ready. Ok, I get it, there are a lot of rentals going in and out of there, but that’s why I called ahead because I didn’t have time to wait around for them to get the headsets ready.
We finally had them all set up at the theatre only to find out that they we had mismatched wired packs and headsets, and the wireless packs were not working properly. The wired packs had different plugs that didn’t match the headset plug (a six prong to a five prong), which caused us to not be able to use those until they were corrected. For the wireless packs, there was one that the battery was falling out of the pack, which made that pack unusable. One headset was missing an antenna, which made that pack to be unusable as well. And the wireless packs that were operational just flat-​out didn’t work when we tried to use them during tech week. Everyone was complaining that they couldn’t hear each other on the wireless packs. I had to call a tech out to the theatre twice to fix the issue. We finally had working headsets right before opening night, but we only had 4 wireless packs and 4 wired. That was really inconvenient because the space is huge (downstairs dressing rooms, upstairs dressing rooms backstage and down the hall outside the theatre), and our cast was huge.
As understanding and friendly their staff was about coming out and fixing the issue, I was really discontent with the experience because we were working on a very tight schedule. This really set me behind on getting the cast and crew ready for the production that weekend. Of course, I understand that all companies have their moments, but I can’t ignore that this reoccurring problem severely affected my ability to stage manage the production, where communication is key. I hope I don’t have this problem with Markey’s next time, if there is a next time.