Re: Outdoor System under powered ?
You can always give them the higher bid service, just not the gear.
If you quote a 24 can light show 2 monitor mixes and a 24 channel FOH,and they expect you to show up with 48 cans, 12 monitor mixes and a 48 channel FOH, then you simply point out to them that if they wanted that level of service they should have signed the higher quote.
When I travel and book a mid size car, I don't show up at the rental counter and expect them to give me the luxury model for the same money. Although it has happened 
because that is all they had. Same thing with a rental system, if your smaller console if booked (and that is all they paid for), then showing up with a larger model is not a problem-of course untill the next time they "expect" you to bring out the larger console-but that is THEIR problem-not yours.
Your job is to provide what is in the CONTRACT-not what the the promoter "thinks" you will bring-"just because".
The other part of the equation is figuring out what is really needed/expected. Yes your gear may be better-but you also need to provide it at a price that the buyer is willing to pay. If all you have is a 48 channel console and what they need is a 24 or 32, then you either need to drop your rate-or buy more gear to meet specific sizes-or let somebody else do the gig.
Yeah it is hard to have these situations-but the thing to take away from it is a learning moment.
And sometimes a different provider is choosen for reasons that just don't make sense-such as maybe the other guy had better "smoke" than you did.
I actually lost a number of gigs back in the 80's when I was providing better gear-for the same price-and better service (or so I thought), until I was informed by my competion that part of the reasons they got the gig and I didn't, was that they would go party with the band after the gig. I had to get back home and get some sleep, because I had another gig the next day.
But in those cases the customer was more "comfortable" with my competition than with me. Whatever. You never know what makes different people "tick".
