How many watts of PA power is needed to push an outdoor gig to 750-1000 fans?

[c2dzmm]

I am curious as to how many watts of PA power it would take to sufficiently play an outdoor gig. Say 6 monitors for the band and 2 3-15in. speakers to push the sound to the audience? The gig location would be out in the open with maybe a curtain or banner behind the band. Lets say a crowd of 750-1000 people.
Thanks Guys.

[trisonic]

You need to talk to a specialist engineer Google "Sound Reinforcement" - I expect that there are TGP equivalent floating around!

I suspect it'll be at least 5kw but there are so many variables.....

Last time I rehearsed with a band (about 20 years ago) we were using a 2.5kw system in a 20 by 40 foot room. Didn't notice the loudness because it was so clear.

Best, Pete.

[aeolian]

What kind of music? That kind of size and open air eats bass. I wouldn't touch it without decent subs. At least a pair of 18's if not more. My set up for such a job is four 18 subs driven by a pair of bridged 1500W amps, and eight 12" two ways driven by another pair of 1400W amps. You need to get the tops above the audience's heads to project back. Either a line array (my stack of four 2ways per side behaves somewhat like a line array) or long throw horn loaded mid drivers to keep the sound from spreading and throw it the distance. The lateral dispersion of the line array isn't necessary, you want the throw. Folks that want the rock with the band will stay in line with the stage, less level off to the sides will let those folks chat. Horn loaded subs aren't such a bad idea, useless in small clubs, but they will carry better outdoors.

If the stage is big, you'll want some decent side fill monitors. At least 15" two ways, if not double 15 things. The bass will disappear on stage 10' away from the bass players amp. Unless it's behind the drummer, he will need a substantial monitor to hear the bass though. A big open air stage for a small/moderate crowd needs almost as much power on stage as it does out front.

Back in the 70's I did some outside modern Hawaiian music things for the music store I worked for. With just a couple of horn loaded 15" two ways per side, and a few hundred watts of power. But it was mostly midrange. acoustic guitars and singing. Nowdays, folks would bring much more, even for that music.

[Slick]

Depends on the type of music you do.... The band i play in is a Southern Rock/Classic Rock band and to do a gig like that we would probably use our full system which is



1-set of 18" scoops
1-set of 18" W-bins
1- set 15" front load subs

That will cover the low end

The mids and highs would be
2-sets of national S-4 mid high cabs

For power amps your looking at around 6000 watts for the subs and 1500 for the mid highs.

My advice would be hire a sound company that is familiar with doing outdoor venues.

[John Phillips]

Two 100W heads and four 4x12"s for each guitarist, four 100W heads or two 200/300W heads and four big cabs (8x10" or 2x15" according to taste) for the bass player, an eight-way desk (if you're lucky enough to be able to get more than a couple of mics on the kit) and a couple of 400W slave amps driving something like eight 4x12" columns for the vocals and a bit of drum reinforcement. Forget monitors, you'll never hear them over the backline anyway. Or you could always turn two of the columns inwards a bit. You can play to about 50,000 folks with that lot.

















:)

Just kidding. Things have changed a little since 1969 ;). Although, it's surprising how well that old approach can work, if you're really forced to. Last year a friend of mine hired some backline out for a small 'local festival' outdoor gig, and the organisers thought that 'hiring a PA' meant a 150W head box and two 1x12" cabs :eek:. After some running round they managed to scrape up a pair of 500W powered 1x15"s and used the hired rig as mixer and monitors. The backline was a Marshall 2203, a Hiwatt DR103 (both with 4x12"s) and a Trace Elliot 250W 4x10" bass amp... none of it going through the PA of course. Apparently it wasn't bad at all... until the hired generator decided it couldn't cope and they had to go and find a bigger one :).

My advice would be hire a sound company that is familiar with doing outdoor venues.
+1

[Dutchman]

Depends on the event. A social gathering will require far less than a Concert. If it's a street dance the people that want it loud will be close to the stage, the social talkers will be at the other end.

Loud isn't everything, clarity is the King for my mixes. The low end doesn't unfold until around 100 feet, but still requires the most power.

With a 4 way adjustable crossover Minimum of

Subs 2 18's per side with 1000 watts into 4 ohms Total 4 18's 2000 watts

Low Mid 2 15's pet side with 1000 watts into 4 ohms Total 4 15's 2000 watts

High Mid 2 Horns splayed per side with 500 watts into 4 ohms Total 4 Horns 1000 watts

Highs 2 Horns splayed per side with 500 watts into 4 ohms Total 4 Horns 1000 watts

Stage monitors 15's with horns 500 watts each, these can be jumpered to ruan a 4 ohms so 1500 watts

I'm coming up with 7500 watts, You could cheat on the horns some and the monitors but not on the low end.

That would get you good coverage and clarity, with some heavy thump near the stage.

You'll need to power all of that too, and lights. So providing your own 220 power to the stage is best.
Getting the FOH sound person above the crowd is good also.

[trpullen]

http://www.prosoundweb.com/forums/ is the TGP equivalent. Post your question in the "Lab Lounge". It is for weekend warrior types but has some very knowledgeable folks over there.

[vinney57]

Aargh... you are asking completely the wrong question I am afraid. So many variables that a meaningful answer is impossible.

[noisenet]

Honestly, outdoors takes a lot more of a system. Below I'll detail our system, which would sound good outside, but not as good as I'd want....

Our set up is:
2 sets of 2x18" JBL subs per side. The 18's are 800w per speaker, 1600 per cab.

1 Hi-Mid box per side w/ 2x12 mid drivers and 1 2" horn driver. Also JBL.

3 Crown Macro-Tech 3600 amplifiers.
Everything running in stereo

DBX compressors, EQ's and Gates.
Lexicon and TC Electronics effects.
Soundcraft 24 channel console.

One hell of a soundman.
Inside, this will rattle the hell out of every room we'll go into, but outside, the open air just eats so much of the sound. Yeah, it can be loud as heck, but you wanna think about quality of sound. For the size gig you laid out above, I'd say double what we have would be a good start....

[dave s]

My previous 'oldies' band did a lot of similar type gigs. Civic sponsored park concert series gigs where they supplied the mobil stage rig and we provided the sound system.

Our full system consisted of two double 18 JBL SR 4718s and two of the JBL SR double 15 w/2" horns. Each sub was powered by its own Crown MA2400 and the upper cabs shared a Crown MA3600. So we had 4800w running 4 18s and about 1800w into each of the upper cabs.

You need LOTS of horsepower to run for a 1000 people outdoors if you want it to be clean. Our system was lacking in the upper end due to only having two 2" horns for most of the high-end.

The system was dialed in beautifully and nobody ever said we sounded anything short of great at any of the outdoor gigs.

A good rule of thumb for providing power to speakers is that 1.5 - 2.0 the true RMS rating of the speaker cab is required. We were right on the money at about 1.5 times the RMS rating of our cabs. Loud clear and plenty of headroom available. The key is adequate power.

dave

[dave s]

Our set up is:
2 sets of 2x18" JBL subs per side. The 18's are 800w per speaker, 1600 per cab.

1 Hi-Mid box per side w/ 2x12 mid drivers and 1 2" horn driver. Also JBL.

3 Crown Macro-Tech 3600 amplifiers.
Everything running in stereo



did you see my post? We had almost the EXACT same PA! We even had a 24-ch Spirit 8 board! Different FX and I was actually able to pull off all comps/limiters except on our vocal submix!

dave

[c2dzmm]

The music will be metal. Thanks for the detailed replys. Anybody else?

[trpullen]

Metal...you need lots. Contact a pro sound company and have them bring the rig.

[drbob1]

OUch, till we got to the metal part I was right with you... A big part of how loud you are is how efficient your speakers are. If you can find 70s JBL 18s and 15s, those put out almost 6 times as much volume as a modern 18-so you could get by with 2000-3000w. Using modern amps and speakers (where the amps are WAY cheaper than the speakers), 7k sounds a lot more realistic, maybe more for metal...

[aeolian]

But for metal, you don't need clean vocals. ;)

[heybulldog]

Twice as much amp as speaker.