For any gig you're going to need preparation, whether it be for a festival, or for a gig in your back yard, things to think about are:
Equipment,
Staffing,
Audience,
and Sound
The scale of these things change dramatically for what kind of gig you're holding, but they are always present.
If the gig is outside, you'd need much bigger speakers than if it was inside, even if you aren't performing to a huge audience, this is because the sound from the speakers has more directions to go, whereas inside all the sound that is created bounces off the walls and is contained within the area.
- Equipment - For any gig equipment is needed, and the larger the gig, the more powerful the equipment is required, I'll go into more detail about exactly what is needed later on, but at any gig you're going to need amplification. This could range from, guitar amps, bass amps, vocal P.A speakers, to Bass Bins and 10,000 watt Loud Speakers. Are you going to need a stage? Or can you just set up in the corner of the pub?
- Staffing - Perhaps at a pub gig you won't have to worry so much about staffing, because in most cases you are the staff, you're responsible for setting up, bringing your equipment and running the gig, but at a festival there are hundreds of staff members required: sound engineers, front of house, lighting engineers. The list goes on.
- Audience - The audience are one of the most important parts of the gig, the people you are performing to, the larger the audience, the better the equipment needed and the more staff needed too. What kind of people are going to be at this gig? Will security be needed, maybe not at a pub gig, but thing's still need to be considered, how many people can the pub hold? How many people are expected to arrive...
- Sound - Sound is the factor you really need to be on top of, if you're in a small venue how loud can you be? You have to take into consideration health and safety, in a venue all the sound is controlled and bounces off the walls, letting much less noise spill out. At a festival the sound can escape anywhere, so the overall sound must be louder and positioned properly. Any gig will have Sound Engineers, whether they are you, someone in the band, or an assigned team for the venue or festival, these will ensure the smooth running of the gig, making sure the mix is perfect so the audience really get the atmosphere they're looking for.
Planning a pub gig is something many of you may be familliar with, although it may not seem it, there is a lot of work put into setting up a small gig. Things to be taken in mind are:
Equipment - You can't just settle for that old Hi-Fi that's been hiding away in your attic, suitable P.A speakers are required, for a pub sized venue you're looking at about 200-500 watts for the Vocal / Keyboard P.A.
A P.A system is a set of speakers attatched to a mixer with an amplifier. It is essential for a vocalist to be run through a P.A as guitar amps and bass amps don't cover the frequencies required to make vocals stand out. It is also possible to run bass guitars or electro-acoustic guitars through a P.A system, directly wired in, or through a D.I box if necessary. If using turntables you would also run these through the P.A. It would be incredibly difficult to do a gig without a proper P.A system as the vocals would be drowned out, especially by a drum kit. P.A's come in all different shapes and sizes, fold away ones with a mixer and 2 speakers, larger ones with a seperate mixer and standing speakers, all of these come in a range of watts, the more watts the more powerful the P.A/amplifier is. Some examples of good P.A manufacturers are Peavey, Yamaha, Roland.
For guitar about 100 watts is sufficient, but you can give or take depending on the amp/model. This is sufficient to keep up with the drums for pretty much any genre, at no point should the amp need to be on full volume, guitar amps are necessary as although a guitar can be plugged straight into a P.A. if you want to create any real tone you need a proper guitar amp. There are all different kinds of guitar amps and depending on what style you play will help determine the amp you want. Marshall, Peavey, Line 6, Orange are some examples of good amps.
For bass I'd say about 200-300 watts, it is necessary for the bass to have a higher watt amp as the low frequencies often get drowned out by the drums and guitar, and when caught up in the mix can often be hard to hear. The bass can be plugged straight into the P.A but bass amps are designed to output the low frequencies the better than P.A speakers, giving it a bassier feel, and with the bass amp comes the ability to shape tone. Bass amps can be pretty robust and can come in all forms of amplitude, some good bass amps include, Ashdown, Peavey or Ampeg.
For a small gig you needn't worry about miking up the drum kit, but if necessary little amplification would be used, a few dynamic microphones, or two overhead condenser mics. Examples of good microphones are Shure, Sennheiser, Behringer.
That should be all that's needed, tonnes of equipment isn't needed, as it's an indoor area, and not a large one either.
Playing inside a confined space is a whole different story to playing outside, the sound can change according to the material of the surface the amps are on, the walls, the size of the space. Everything contributes to how the overall sound ends up, so good sound engineering must always be taken into account. Time must be taken getting a good tone and a good level before performing, too many times have I seen bands play and a vocalist be too quiet, or the guitarist is out of tune and ripping my ears with an overly trebbley tone. It only takes a few minutes to get a good sound and tune up before playing. If you're a guitarist or a bassist play around with your amp, research what makes a good tone for what you're playing, it makes all the difference when you play in an area where people can really here you. Before finally playing make sure everybody is turned up to a level point, where nobody is being drowned out, whilst still maintaining the audiences hearing.
Finally, the staffing. Part of the staffing of a pub gig will be already accounted for, bar staff, often doormen, and in some places security will already be there, so worrying about hiring and paying people isn't a concern. The other part of the staffing is done by you/your crew. You are responsible for getting a good sound. You are responsible for advertising the gig, the venue will only go as far as to put a poster in their window, you have to tell whoever you can, make a facebook page, promote yourselves. You need to be your own technical crew, you have to set up your instruments, sort out the levels, tune up and go. You're reliable for everything, but that can be a good thing, you should trust yourself to get a good sound, and can't fault anybody else if it doesn't go to plan.
Comparing this I am going to talk about the requirements for setting up a festival. Needless to say a lot of work goes into planning a festival, I'll start by talking about the people that go into it.
Admin - The admin team have to worry about the financial side of the festival, advertising, marketing, security, booking bands and budgeting the festival. As for any team working on a festival there will be a lot of people involved with very specific roles that all ensure the smooth running of the festival. A festival is a lot larger than a local gig, more people will be there, with more needs, food, drink, toiletries, and accommodation, everything must be accounted for for the masses of people. The admin team have to be on top of all of this, and make sure it is all within the budget, a lot of money is being spent, so it is important it is made back. People in the admin team will work with people from other teams organising the festival, equipment needs to be booked, research will be done about the best equipment for the festival, how to best produce the overall sound, how loud it needs to be, noise pollution of the local area, noise control - trying to create the best sound right in the arena. Bands need to be booked, people will have the job of scouting about booking bands/acts for next years festival all the time.
Equipment - The equipment for a festival is a considerable amount more than a small gig, playing in a large area, with a lot of people about requires big equipment. The Pyramid stage at Glastonbury in 2008 consisted of 54 1000 watt, 18" Martin Audi WS218X subwoofers angled to get the perfect directional control, with with 15, Martin Audio W8L Longbow high power speakers on each side. All this is necessary to get the sound needed out to the large crowd of people, from the front of the crowd, all the way out to the back. All of the speakers are angled in the best position to create the best sound, a lot of planning and testing has to be done for a big festival. As well as the speakers for the audience a festival needs on stage monitors, these are needed so the act performing can hear themselves, as well as used for the sound engineers to monitor the sound. You might see bands performing with huge Marshall stacks, bigger than your bedroom wall at home, but all that is needed is an amp capable of producing a good tone, the amp is then miked up and put into the mixing desk, which controls all of the instruments/inputs coming from the stage. To get further into it festival lighting is required, if you've ever been to a big gig you'll notice that there can be as much attention spent on light control as sound control; lasers, holograms, images on screens - Everything to make the ultimate visual and auditory experience. Without the proper equipment there is no way the audience would be able to hear the act on stage, especially if they are towards the back of the crowd, even a powerful large watt guitar amp wouldn't be able to fill out an open space such as a festival.
The equipment required for a festival is much like the equipment required for a small gig, only on a larger scale. For a band, drums, amps, guitars, bass, microphones, it's all still needed, they are just miked up or run into the mixer. Some instruments may require a D.I. box before being ran into the mixer, this is to boost the signal from the instrument - examples of instruments that may require D.Iing are Bass, Piano or Electro-Acoustic guitar.
Along with this the obvious requirements of -
A stage,
Mixing Desk/s,
Cables(XLR, 1/4 Jack leads, Phono)
Cameras(On stage / On crowd)
Screens/Visual Monitors(For crowd/for technical crew).
To go with the equipment required a whole team of staff is designated to the equipment and the functioning of it, this would be the Technical Team. The technical team have the job of finding the best equipment for the festival, liaising with the Admin Team to get the required equipment, planning where about the best place to put the equipment is, setting up the equipment and ensuring a smooth running of the equipment. These tasks will all be broken up into varied sized groups of people. The technical side of the festival is the most important to the performance of the festival, as it is all about getting the best sound achievable, you wouldn't expect to go to a large festival and have your ears destroyed by a sloppy unengineered sound. Without a good technical team it is impossible to get a good overall sound, and without this your festival will be a failure.
Deep inside a festival lies the festival goers, people with money, time on there hands and a keen sense to do something fun. What defines a fun festival is up to the people that go attend, but certain things must be provided. When planning a festival the audience must be put into consideration - Food stands need to be arranged, and a wide variety, what if your audience is made up of vegans and vegetarians? You can't just have burger stands and hot dog vendors. Also to be provided is toilets, lines and lines of portaloos, there's hardly ever a moment at a festival when the cue for the toilets is gone, sufficient toilets must be provided for people, some festivals even provide luxury toilets, for people that can't bare to squat in those putrid portaloos.
A festival is kind of like a little community, with people with requirements, it is important for a festival to have little shops/stalls selling essentials, such as toilet roll, drink, food, pillows, wellies, as well as the festivals own stalls there are people with their own stalls, often selling clothes or home made items, that add to the festival vibe.
People need somewhere to sleep at a festival, a good area of land is needed for people to pitch their tent; it needs to be somewhere flat and unlikely to be ruined by the rain. The campsites at a festival are usually broken up into sections, where people can go and pitch their tent, this helps break it up a bit, making it easier for people to navigate and stops everything being in one cluster.
Finally the people in high-visibility jackets. They stand at the front and pass out water in times of need, or lift the tired and weary out of the arena to safety when it gets too much. The security - often overlooked by the crowd members, but their job is highly important. Security are there for the protection of the crowd and the smooth running of the festival, many of them are volunteers. The security make sure everyone in the audience is okay, if people need to get out they are lifted to the front of the crowd where they can get some air or a drink. Security also ensure that the audience know everything they need to, as any member of security at a festival should have a good knowledge of what's going on at the festival. As well as keeping everybody in the know and safe, the security do the job of enforcing the law, bag checks and searches are often done on the entry to the festival and when entering the arena of the festival, this is to ensure there are no weapons or drugs or glass bottled drinks being brought into the festival. Without security a festival could be a potentially dangerous place, particularly if people are taking drugs, if somebody was to pass out unexplainably in a crowd then the security/medics need to know what's up with the person as soon as possible, and if drugs and alcohol are involved it can make that more difficult.
Through all of these things comes the smooth running of a festival, and through the interaction of the staff roles that go into putting it together, communication is vital for the festival to work. Equipment must be organised, catering, security/health and safety, everything must be accounted for, budgeted, and planned out before the actual festival. This is why it is important for people from different teams in the festival to liaise with each other.
Lastly I am going to cover what I have gone over slightly over the course of this article but not really gone into detail about, the most important bit, achieving that best possible sound.
Long before the festival has begun there are teams of people working out how to produce this sound, many of the low bass frequencies will escape into the ground as soon as they've come out of the speaker, and if there's one thing I've learnt about music appreciators, is that they really love bass. I spoke earlier about the set up for the pyramid stage at Glastonbury 54 huge powerful subwoofers were needed, much more than the speakers used to cover the high and mid frequencies, this is necessary for the audience to really feel the bass. Research is put into the best way to angle speakers to have them avoid the wind, and target the area they want the sound to be in, it is important that if there are multiple stages at the festival, that the sound from another stage isn't drowning out another. It may look like they've just stacked the speakers up there next to the stage, but it's all about positioning. When walking around a festival you hear the sound of the stage you're closest to, but as you get further away it cuts out, this is because the sound is being controlled successfully, and there is no spilling of sound. Sound must be controlled and kept within the boundary of the festival, as it is easy for noise to escape and pollute the nearby areas, where people may be trying to sleep/work, this is another reason so much planning goes into getting the right sound, with the right levels.
Before the act goes on stage there will always be a sound check, this may seem tedious and boring, but it is essential in order to get the levels for the band, at a festival somebody will come on and do the sound check for the band, getting everything ready before the actual band take their place on the stage. Everything is miked up at a festival, and the sound engineers are able to achieve the tidiest sound possible, from changing the EQ on the snare drum to turning up the vocalist, the mixing desk here is going to have a lot more power and control over the sound than one used for a small gig, making it possible to fine tune and tweak everything to that precise level that is needed.
