Must own 1 or 2 video camcorders

As a life of a freelance videographer, I encounter at some times or another, scenarios or issues face by videographers alike be it during events of filming or outside the time of video recordings. I am tempted to write this first article after several years in the field.

I clearly remember which happened last Saturday, 29 November 2008, a videographer friend of mine, called my mobile in an urgent manner stated that his video camcorder, a pro 3CCD , suddenly stopped recording. He was definitely very nervous and terrified then we talked over the phone. The worst part was that the event going to start in 5 minutes. At that time, I was in my study room, facing the computer. I tried my very best to do the troubleshooting over the phone. Started with pushing the resetting button that is available on the video camcorder but to no luck. Still it don't worked. Then, while on the phone with my trouble videographer of mine, with the handphone still stucked on my right ear, I took out my Panasonic 3 CCD AG-62 from the dry cabinet. By the way, he is using the same model as mine. That was why he called me for the immediate fix, he hoped for. We managed to go through the menu settings exactly the same as mine but to no avail. Still, his camcorder refused to record.

By this time, his adrenaline was sky rocketing. He was at a lost of word since the equipment was his one and only video camera. He don't have a back up. But he was very lucky, because a fellow videographer came to his rescue with a Panasonic AG-102 on hand while we were on the phone. What a lucky man!
Whew...

So, the question is, as a videographer either doing fulltime or even a freelancer, when doing paid projects, must he or she own a ONE video recorder or TWO video recorders with one camcorder as a backup? What's your comment on this?