NWB - Community Blog

If you're going to play to an open field with around 300+ you will need a good size PA to cover it as sound just disappears in the open air.

What size PA have you got at your disposal?

My father's band played at an outside festival over the weekend down in Banbury, Oxfordshire to around 350 Max. The PA that we all used was a Turbo Sound rig. 3x Full range tops per side and 3x 18" subs paired up along the floor in front of the trailor, not sure what their outputs were but it certainly did the job. The mixing console was one of Yamaha's latest digital models, cost around £8000.00 I am led to believe.

ANy outdoor festival needs a decent sized PA, anything small and it will just get lost and you will end up driving it beyond it's capabilities and producing a lot of disorted sound.

If the area is surrounded by buildings, the sound will bounce off and you can end up with allsorts of other problems.

Lots of things to consider.

Lee

bit more to it than that.... :D
Expectations of people attending open air gigs is a lot higher these days...depends on how big 'a small field' is...I'd say you need at least (very very least) a 5k rig (I'd need one just for our garden!)...with 10k more like..and 20k for your largest scenario
The trouble of putting all this together, cabling, sound engineering aint really worth doing 'as a project'
If your gonna try something like this, get the pro's in and factor it in to cost.
Weather is a factor, blowing sound around, as is style of music...if you want loud rock...double these figures
PLUS...where ya getting the power from?

Beat me to it Alec.
Anything of this size, hire in. It then becomes the Hire Co's problem to ensure it's big enough and you get a sound engineer as well.

You need lots of power and lots of speaker area for outdoor gigs. We played a garden party/BBQ a couple of weeks ago and used a >5K rig with 2 x 2x15s (bass), 2 x 1x15 (mids), and 2 x 1x15 with horns (tops).
Jon

we usually play at an annual garden party ...fields at the back of the house - normal PA setup... and the pub 1.5 miles away can hear it..rest assured - it carries lol!

There's always megaphones................they seem to work for the police :D

Rob

bear in mind woodstacks PA was just 10 k ! (valve amps though not your tranny stuff see)

or the bank of WEMs at the Bilnd faith Hyde Park gig - and you still couldn't hear the bass....

Rob

A Bigger PA is better, not just for volume but for overall quality of sound, an under powered rig will be driven far too hard and either damage to the amps or speakers will occur, but the sound quality will be bad.

Your best bet, as a previous poster has already said, get an outside PA hire guy in, tell him what your looking at doing and let him do the rest. Will be the best £300+ you will have spent + you will be able to enjoy the day instead of worrying.

Lee

sorry Matt - didnt mean to screw up the consensus haha - like i said its a garden party so we need to be loud - uve seen our PA so know the score there - i would say we probably have the masters on number 1-2!
Will maybe have a different stance next week when we play outdoors at a village fete (bigger audience, smaller field, more enclosed surroundings!) lol x

yeh Matt - 1st set 2pm - 2nd 3.15 (ish)

not sure on what/where we're playing as yet but we'l be somewhere on the field near the park. Not sure if you know Ainsworth but its near the Duke William pub!

I think we're just using normal PA although Paul might use the outdoors as an excuse to give the bass bins an airing - again wont know til the day!

PS - previous comment shudve read that we DONT need to be loud hence PA masters set at 1-2 lol! x

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned power SUPPLY yet in this blog. The biggest problem factor in outside gigs is the actual supply of electricity. It's no good having a 10k+ rig if all you have is a silly little 2k generator running on diesel that is not going to give your monster rig all the juice you need.

I'd speak to a pro organiser to see what size of generator you will need for your FULL rig (not just P.A. Backline, lights etc all come into the power equation) and make sure it gets delivered. Underpowering will kill your gig just as effectively as not being loud enough.....

thats a point...nobody's mentioned where we'l be plugging in haha - maybe an acoustic set is on the cards!