This thread was inspired by a thread in the Band Managment area: One poster mentioned that in his town, most clubs and venues have their own PA and sound Men, while another poster described the opposite for his area: most bands bring their own PA (and lights) and run sound themselves.

So : What's your neck of the woods and how are the venues you play equipped? (lets exclude weddings/parties/corporate gigs , those always require self-sound)

ME:Seattle/ Puget Sound area (USA,) a fairly metropolitan/suburban region. The vast majority of venues in my area have their own PA and sound guys, I've never played a venue that required us to do our own sound.

In my area, the original clubs have their own PA installed, while the cover bars generally do not. So the cover bands need to bring their own PA or hire it out. The original bands do not.

And all the venues that I can think of in town do squarely fall into one of those two categories. There's not a lot of overlap around here.

In Sacramento, it varies. But most places have some kind of PA, whether a full setup or something very rudimentary...

San Diego and LA clubs have their own pa's, some good, some, well, just sad. The bigger problem is quality sound guys. It can be luck of the draw as some really see it as art and make the band shine, others spend the night texting someone or smoking outside and leave the settings stagnant from band to band.

When I'm too old to jump around, I'm going to go do sound and enjoy the hell out of it as will the bands!

Ever venue I can find (not including house parties) has its own PA, and 95% of the time its own sound guy. 80% of the venues have outstanding PAs.

In Dallas, larger venues typically do...smaller venues typically don't...

Newcastle. All venues have great PAs and soundmen, and clubs and pubs that have bands on will have a decent vocal PA at the very least.

One nightclub here, Digital, has a fully built into the foundations, custom funktion one PA setup, apparently the loudest in england or some other such claim, and the bands go through that when they play EVERYONE should have the chance to play a flatwound P through that system, man. It's life altering.

One venue has a decent Mackie system. Stereo subs, plenty of power, monitors, etc. The rest of the gigs we use our own, but we don't need/use a very big system. Usually a powered head, a couple 2-way 15's on sticks and a couple monitors. We do our own mixing so we almost always sound the way WE want to.

Most clubs we play have barely enough wall plug receptacles. Pay to Play clubs have pa and sound person. This is Palm Springs to LA area. We run our own sound. Basically set levels during soundcheck and hopefully the stage volume doesn't get louder.

nice responses so far!
please remember to mention your location , too!

Central Illinois and one club I've played has a house system. It's good except for the subs. EAW mid/highs flown, four EV 2X18" subs (under the hollow floor so the bass sucks reall bad), up to six EV 1x15 floor wedges, Furman power distribution and real filtering, a bunch of Crown amps, and at least two of the sound guys are really good (one is our band's sound guy).

Everything else is bring your own PA.

jte

I'm an hour east of Portland OR. We have one 300 seat venue with a real PA and lights (they've dropped around $40K on this), plus a variety of house guys to run the system. Bands pay 100 bucks off the top for sound and lights.

Some other venues book independent sound providers for bigger shows; most of the outdoor festivals do this for instance. The promoter pays in that case. But the vast majority of gigs here are bring-your-own...probably 90% at least.

In Columbus, OH, where I used to play a lot (and will again this summer), it seems like the clubs that book original bands all have PAs (of varying quality), but if it's a cover gig, you bring your own.

here in Halifax, clubs have their own PA. No band owns a PA, except for practice. This is the case for 99% of indie shows across most of Canada. Most bars and venues pay well if you are a talented band.

Here in montana I have always used my own PA. A couple of bars supply PA but I would say 75% of them don't.

Central Illinois and one club I've played has a house system. . . .Everything else is bring your own PA.

My experience in central Illinois was that PA was typically provided at the clubs and bars that regularly featured regional and national acts (for example, places like the Blind Pig/High Dive, Mabels, Ted's Warehouse, Shoeless Joe's, etc.). OTOH, in bars & restaurants that booked exclusively local or in-state acts, artists typically supplied their own PA.

in Memphis 75% of the venues we play have their own PA and soundman......some of them that don't really should because it takes a large PA for the rooms we are playing. Outside of Memphis it's normally 50/50....some have PA, some don't, even fewer have a soundman. I absolutely HATE having to run a PA that is already setup in a venue......there is always some catch or someone who has done a half a$$ job at setting it up......i.e. "channel 2, 5,8 and 12 don't work, wait, or is it 3,4 and 9??"....."when you adjust the levels on the mains it also adjusts the master volume on the monitors.".....ugh!!!!

I'm an hour east of Portland OR. We have one 300 seat venue with a real PA and lights (they've dropped around $40K on this), plus a variety of house guys to run the system. Bands pay 100 bucks off the top for sound and lights.

$100?? Is that for just sound and lights? Do you have to pay extra for the venue?

$100?? Is that for just sound and lights? Do you have to pay extra for the venue?

100 bucks for the sound man (including the house system), and I think $60 for the door guy. After that, the pay's typically 100% of the door, with a varying guarantee against that for touring bands, and usually no guarantee for local bands. Sometimes the venue sucks up the sound and door fees too, since they want touring bands playing on weeknights to keep coming back.

One club we play has a PA - not sure why we go back there though, as the drinks are so expensive we people don't like going there even when we give them free tickets. It doesn't pay well either. (edit: just remembered - the sound SUCKS. Last time we were there the owner promised he was going to sack the sound guy for what he did to us...)

A few smaller "music bars" have PA's, but round here "venue which promotes live music" means we won't pay the band, will put a minimum of three bands on a night, and if the bands choose to charge on the door the can provide someone to do it, and split the takings after giving the sound guy $100 (bearing in mind a good door take in these places would be $300 between 3 or 4 bands!). We don't play those places!

All of the bars that will actually PAY a band expect you to turn up and do the job, which means your own PA... So we run our own PA at 95% of gigs.

Ian

Treasure Coast area of Florida....... what's a club PA? Never played a place with one :) The bars here don't have em. The dedicated music bar was a percentage of door place and we would rather know how much we're making. There is one nightclub in town that I don't know if they have their own...... never been in there. So.....I can safely say 90% don't :).

In my area, the original clubs have their own PA installed, while the cover bars generally do not.

+1... That's pretty common around the Phoenix/Tempe area scene too.

In Helsinki, Finland, it varies.

The smallest dives have anything from beat-up JBL PA and even more beat-up Yamaha desks to Wharfedale PA (it´s not really a PA) and Yamaha digital desks.

Medium-sized clubs are mostly equipped with a newer and better PA (say, JBL, EAW, Nexo etc.) and usually a Midas Venice desk with complementary outboard.

The big ones (like Tavastia and Nosturi) are actually very well equipped.

Tavastia, my favorite (as I do sound for a living) has dual large-scale Midas desks on both FOH(Heritage 2500) and MON(can´t remember the model, as I mostly do FOH), most of the outboard you could wish for and massive EV line-array system. And the acoustics of the venue really couldn´t be much better.

Nosturi has a dbAudiotechnik PA and Midas FOH desk (Heritage, also) and a Yamaha M7CL MON desk.

nearly all of them (in any category) fit the full-range criteria, and are designed for a full band mix.

The in-house sound guys are mostly professional and konow their s**t, with an occasional individual wrestling with attitude-problems. Most established bands have their own engineers, though...

I guess we´re a bit spoiled.

Heber Springs, AR (No, you haven't heard of it)

Around here(here being a 50-mile radius or so), most anywhere worth playing has a PA, but in smaller towns not a lot of them know what they're doing. My brother's band played one where the sound guy mid-scooped. :hmm:

My band plays in churches mostly...they usually have PA systems but they're not necessarily set up for shows...my church has a Mackie 18-channel mixer, Bose 802 SIII speakers, and 2000W of Crown power...it's pretty typical of a church that size.

We've found ourselves in some tight spots before(middle of a high school gym), and for those we have this (https://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=SYS4-LM15) :D

here in New Delhi, India ALL the venues i have seen and played supply us the house systems. i dunno if the pub owns the PA, its likely they (organizers) rent it along with the sound guy. the systems are usually good but the sound guy and his mixing senses are always questionable. since here the fashion is that at every gig a couple of bands or even more play on a gig night so we never had to even think about the PA
so i guess i am pretty lucky on this part considering that this is not a place where western music IS the popular music anyway

Some of the larger clubs have nice sound systems. Most of the smaller ones have a couple of lights that don't work...LOL We play mostly south of Seattle, so I'ld say most gigs we have to run our own sound. On a side note, we are playing at Jazzbones in Tacoma on Friday night, I'm stoked!!!!

In Minneapolis/St. Paul virtually every bar or club has it's own PA...typically ranging from outstanding (Triple Rock, Station 4, etc) to mostly passable (Hexagon Bar, Big V's)...the average live music "rock" club has a couple of flown full-range packs and a sub or two. Monitoring is totally hit or miss...

I've never been asked to pay the person mixing the band, but have tipped them on numerous occasions.

I also run a venue in a town about an hour south of Minneapolis, and we provide PA/soundguy at no charge to the band.