Attn: Anyone who has played an outdoor show, or even indoor I guess:

I'm organizing an outdoor show and was hoping some people on here could provide some numbers, like

1) How big of a stage does a general band need? A general band as in vocalist, bassist, drum set, guitar1, guitar2

2) How many stage lights? Outdoor show at night time, dunno how many attendees

3) How many speakers/amps/microphones...or does the band supply those

That's the generic info I need right now to get some pricing on stuff...if anyone could suggest what they've dealt with in the past, or even people who know this stuff or rent this stuff out that would be awesome.

2/4/2009 6:17:04 PM

paging XPMS?

2/4/2009 6:19:05 PM

Wow... good luck with this.

2/4/2009 6:27:38 PM

Paging Eulogist...

2/4/2009 9:28:25 PM

1) hard question to answer. id say something 20' wide by 15' deep would be plenty without overdoing it and without knowing equipment setups etc.

2) lights I really do not know anything about in this context, sorry

3) amps for instruments and stuff the band should provide those if they are the least bit professional. As far as the PA system used to push the mic'd drums, amps, vocals, most decent bands will have something like this but most decent bands also expect most places they play at to provide this (and in general - in nicer form than they have at their practice space.

-At minimum I would prefer one mic for each of the bass and guitar cabinets (so if one bass and two guitars then 3 mics for those),

-You want at least 2 vocals mics available. 1 for the lead vocalist and at least another available if anyone else in the band does backing vocals.

-drums are a whole separate animal. If you want to be really professional about it, you are going to have a slew of mics available for the drum kit. At MINIMUM though, 5 drum specific mics should be provided: one for the bass drum, one for the snare, one for toms, two for cymbals imo. Depending on the drumming setup, more could easily be called for. IE a separate one for a floor tom vs the kind of standard sized toms that are grouped together a lot of times, or extra mics for the cymbals, or individual mics for the toms, or extras for people who have larger sets.

If you are wanting to rent stuff, I bet Ron, one of the sound guys at the Brewery could help you out. He is very knowledgeable and has a lot of equipment at home.

2/4/2009 10:11:36 PM

What are you organizing an outdoor show for?

2/4/2009 11:03:34 PM

oh and besides the PA speakers for the audience, it would be nice to provide monitors for at least the drummer if not a couple up front for the guitar players and vocalist.

2/5/2009 8:32:26 AM

you should probably get a promoter to put this show together for you if you are asking questions like the ones you are asking.

2/5/2009 3:30:44 PM

This show sounds like its going to be bands practicing outside and no one is going to hear shit.

2/5/2009 3:40:32 PM

and yea to be fair after some of the questions you are asking, you are really going to need some people a lot more experienced than yourself helping you out.

2/5/2009 4:00:21 PM