PA system for park gig

[badboy1984]

Our band been ask to play a charity gig in a local park, but the event organizer asked us what kind of PA system we require for the gig. Our band have no experience of doing park gig (open area) so we told him we will contact them soon about the arrangement.

What sort of PA shall we ask for? (reasonable of course). i.e how many speakers, monitor, power of the PA etc?

Our band consist of drumer, bass, guitar, keyboard and vocal.

Shall we just run the vocal and keyboard to the PA only? or DI the guitar to the PA as well? and leave the bass and drummer backline sound only?

Also haven't done a park gig so i not sure how much power do i need for my bass amp.

[mep]

Everything will need to go through the PA. Your amp should be ok as a back line. A 5K rig at least should be ok. Good monitors with plenty of power and 3 mixes would be good. A decent PA company should be approached by the event organisers who will suggest what rig to use. Give them your requirements such as line up for instruments vocals and monitor mixes. Good luck with it, outdoor gigs are a blast.

[rOB]

I hate to be a realist and go slightly IT but consider the weather. Rain can damage your gear.

Ask about shelter from the elements in stage?

Have a great time, hope it goes well.

[badboy1984]

We under a cover/shelter so we be fine

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='mep' timestamp='1364941349' post='2033213']
Everything will need to go through the PA. Your amp should be ok as a back line. A 5K rig at least should be ok. Good monitors with plenty of power and 3 mixes would be good. A decent PA company should be approached by the event organisers who will suggest what rig to use. Give them your requirements such as line up for instruments vocals and monitor mixes. Good luck with it, outdoor gigs are a blast.
[/quote]

+1 for larger outdoor/park gigs but a lot depends on the size of the park!

My band supplied the entire PA for a park gig in Brentford in 2011 (playing alongside The Jetsonics). We used our normal backline on stage, but turned up rather louder. We augmented our usual 1x12 tops (McGregors) with a pair of powered Mackie 15" full-range cabs.

Total PA output can't have been as much as 2K but we were nowhere near needing the knobs at max.

Essentially, it was just a much bigger than usual pub gig.

[bassfunk]

Hey get in touch with Titan tours. We use all them for all of our gigs, they're based in Manchester and do PA for loads of outdoor/festival gigs. Very reasonably priced too, I'd say you'd need something like Floodlight two in their website, but depends on the amount of people etc. They're flexible as well so you could mix and match according to your requirements.

http://www.titantourproductions.com/prices.html

Tell them Pete from Supersession sent you.

[Phil Starr]

There are a number of problems outdoors but the biggest is that there are no walls etc so sound isn't reinforced by reflections and fades away much more quickly. For bass especially the sound is radiated equally all around the speakers and so half of it is lost uselessly behind the stage. I'd look to double your normal power for the tops and quadruple for the bass for the same sized audience, or just accept the bass will be reduced. You'll also find that unless the space is restricted people spread out more so there is a bigger area to cover. On the plus side without reflections feedback is less of a problem.

the other thing to look out for is wind noise which can be a real problem if you don't have a sheltered stage area. You really need something to cover your mics to reduce this, usually a foam filter.

We've also done outdoor gigs with our usual PA, we worked it harder and we weren't as loud as usual but we could be heard clearly hundreds of yards away so if you can accept less than ideal sound at lower than indoor levels you can still entertain a crowd and people seem to be willing to accept a compromise outdoors.

Talking to a hire firm is the best first step then you can give an idea of cost to the people who are paying.