Why would they not upgrade their security, and what do they really need to have secured?
Since they travel all over the place, it makes sense to me that they would contract for security rather than upgrade their own to have a standing force. More mouths to feed, etc. As far as what they need protected, I would imagine the performers are pretty specialized and difficult to replace. I'm not exactly sure if this is more of a Cirque d'Soleil or Ringling Brothers circus, but either way, you've got people or critters who would be difficult to replace. It really depends on what kind of threats they're worried about. Even a thrill-gang that just wants to see shit burn could be problematic for them.
Even so, I just can't imagine that they would be willing to higher very expensive runners without a good reason, which is something intriguing and may be worth knowing about.
I'm uncertain if anyone would think rent-a-cops would be able to provide the necessary security for something the size of this convoy and Lone Star/KE would be way more expensive than shadowrunners. It makes a certain sense to me from a cost/capability consideration.
I'm assuming by the time we are done with this run we will have accumulated something around 50,000 nuyen each. With 8 people (soon to be 9), that's 400,000 (450,000) nuyen total. That's not cheap in any sense of the word. I honestly think that an upgraded sensor net that didn't have multiple blind spots + a hired security spider should be able to recognize and threats and even just a handful of dedicated bodyguards would probably be cheaper. It's just the fact that they would sink 400k nuyen every time they need security for a
single day is a little ridiculous in my mind. They must be rolling in money to be able to afford that, which begs the question of why they haven't upgraded their security. I might be overestimating how much we'll earn, but it's still likely to be an absurd amount of money.
I mean, we are having to basically juryrig the entire security system of this convoy because it doesn't have a decent existing one. Not that I mind, since as runners this is how we survive and make a living, but it makes very little sense to me from a management perspective.