pa in marquees

[soundmanjim]

ok, got quite a few gigs booke dup in marquees this summer - but im wondering about placement of speakers and power needed;

last time i did a big place in Surrey that had very taught walls that reflected the sound to s certain degree; another time i was in a flappy tent and i kept getting wierd audio effects coming back to me at the foh position; whats the best way to place cabs in a marquee, say about 30ft x 50ft?
Place two stacks facing straight ahead and two more out at angles?

[sw2407]

Ha! Ha! we are installing a system in a Marquee today for a 3- week festival. The system has to cover everything from beer festivals, fiddlers' rally to rock and disco, even an awards ceremony. Here's waht we are doing, but we will have to be flexible and are changing things for every set up one way or another.
Power is 3 phase 63amp which we have had installed in changing rooms next to marquee. Into this we are putting our main 3ph 63amp to 3 x 63amp sp distro. We will then split this down to 4 x 16amp for the stage and another 4 x 16amp for house lights, bar etc. Thus lights are coming from 1 phase of our distro, and our sound from another and the tent from another. (Make sense so far?)
Last night we installed 40m of truss up the centre of the tent and today we will fly 6 BOSE 802's from the truss - just because we have them in the hire stock - not because we want to use them! These will be used for beer festival to play CDs, ladies fashion show for compere etc etc. On the saturday nights and for big events we will put in our Funktion One Res4 system. Stage will be on a long length of tent, with cabinets angled to cover the length of the tent. We will not be trying to get right to the end of the 40 metres as there will be a bar at one end & a food area at the other, and obviously staff will have to be able to hear to serve!
FOH mix will be 12m in front of stage. Using a new i-LIVE desk from A&H for FOH as we will just install cat5 cable and hide it when not in use. So no multicore and no outboard etc as it's all in the desk! For the smaller stuff, just put Midas next to stage.
1st event this Saturday night for a Rock Night - the guys have been in the business for years, but have hired us for sound as their system is not up to it, at a rehearsal I did they were very critical, so I can let you know how I get on with them!
Tent is 40m x 15m and is lined. No poles as it's a frame type. Biggest problem so far is local counsellers etc sticking their oars in and not letting us get on with our job. Also, spec. for events changes daily!
SW

[John Bell]

Hi Jim, my last gig was in a small marquee at The Black Horse, Great Missenden, for the Wycombe Motorcycle Action Group.

It was extremely damp and gusty and the panels were very flappy. I used my racks, mixer and monitors and amps, but used the organizers FOH Turbosound cabs and amp, (as he didn't want it to be too loud). Some hope, with all that back-line.

There were 4 bands varying from a 3 piece rock to a 5 piece prog-rock, so there was a lot of changing going on.

I had problems with the monitoring, due to the changing reflections from the angled ceiling panels and pressure changes from the gusts of very damp wind.

I managed to hold it all together, but it would have been a lot easier, if I could have had more time fully eq'ing the systems.

I was left to finish building the palette and plywood stage and install the power and my rig, while it was lashing down outside.
I had only just finished a quick leveling when the first band arrived.

Fortunately it did stop raining after we kicked off.
All good experience and everyone enjoyed the gig.

John.

[gingerbiscuit69]

last marquee gig i did, involved the whole floor of the marquee having a 3cm deep river flowing from the bar at one end right down to the stage and under!! during the last band - a who tribute, there was semi naked mud wrestling going on with crowd, band members, burger van ladies etc etc.... was bloody entertaining!!!!

sound wise, it was a nightmare, the sides were open so bass just dissapeared, mid gig i realised the genny wasnt earthed so i was getting random peaks and wierd channel bleed from the nutsty behringer mixer (i was mixing the bands system). oh, and whoever mixed the support whilst i was having dinner managed to blow half the comp drivers. very annoying.

usually i just find in marquees you get the same acoustics as being in a similar sized hall with bare flat walls, or if sides parallel to stacks are open, its like being outside and you will need more headroom.

and the 802's........ could be worse...

[soundmanjim]

LOL

nice one guys.

i feel so much happier now!!!

[gingerbiscuit69]

oh yeah, from above post, regardless of weather, MAKE SURE EVERYTHINGS OFF THE FLOORS, use pallets and fly all cables possible!!!!

cant stress that enough, flash flood rain and streams are really risky in marquees as the grounds trodden solid so water just runs or sits. also, at night, damp is much higher on the floors.

[sw2407]

Well, we're finished installing in the Marquee now - all cables flown, above the liner so they are out of sight. Sound checking system tomorrow morning, then tomorrow night a dinner for 350 with speeches after - don't forsee any major problems except railway line runs right past it!

[Rick Sarson]

Senor Biscuit, was that snap taken in Schipol airport? If it is it is something to do with a system called delay (or beam) steering. www.meyersound.com/support/papers/steering/ very interesting stuff and quite beyond my comprehension. www.livesoundint.com/archives/2002/novdec/la.php scroll down to "steering lobes" I have to say that I was impressed with the system at Schipol, not great audio quality but very intelligible over a wide area in the airport. Not something easily achievable in such an 'audio hostile' environment. As for audio in marquees, best of luck and take a flask and sandwiches the crew are always badly looked after in my experience!

[sw2407]

Well, last night was the first live gig in the marquee and it went very well. We got the Mid/Tops up as high as possible by building a stack of 3 x 21" bass cabs under each one and angled the Mid/Tops down. At sound check we had a bit of bother with reflections off the wooden floor and a bit of feedback from the wedges - so no different from a "normal" room! Took about 3bd off the top end & it sorted it. Once 200+ punters started dancing and it heated up it just sounded amazing. No complaints to the noise police either (I know, because the enviromnental officer has my mobile number!)
In summary I would advise - take great care with mains - we have everything on separate distros and all on RCD's. Make sure everything is on IP44 connectors - as well as drink there could be a lot of moisture!
Plan how you are going to get your speaker stacks as high as possible - we can't use the stage as it's too small for band & PA.
Treat the tent like a room of a similar size, but remember the bass will travel and could annoy the OAPs living nearby!

[Rick Sarson]

If you have 3 subs or more you can use a delay line to create a cardioid sub array. If you can arrange to have the backs of the subs pointing towards your problem OAPs then it will reduce the problem enormously.

[sw2407]

One more comment - make sure you know what everyone else is up to - Last night at 7pm the entire 3-phase supply to our Marquee went down - after soundcheck, while I had nipped home for a quick shower. Turned out the local Round Table had been running 3 big tea-urns, a candy floss machine, ice cream, bouncy castles, small disco, majician, etc etc etc all day ON THE ONE PHASE - this had melted the trips on the supply board - luckily we had access to a local repair man (Ex BBC - old school!) who is qualified to work on 3-phase and he by-passed the in-house trips and put our distro strait into the supply. Marquee was full of punters before we got power restored at 8:30pm!
Ended up a super night, but we were afraid to use half the lights and opted not to use smoke or haze just in case.

[soundmanjim]

we've got a 40kva hush genny with all the distro's for that, courtesy of cosmic in brentwood.
the one im doing in a week is only a handful of bands from 5-8pm. ill still have time to pack away and get to my local before closing!