Need to bounce some house rules off you folks.

[winston]

Hate to state the obvious but I would include things like:
- Don't remove any equipment from this area under any circumstance!
- Proper over/under instructions for coiling cables - that is literally one of the most important life skills I've ever learned bar none!
- Do not use anything besides (gaffer or painter's tape) ever, I can't tell you how many times well-meaning dinguses have gummed up my cables with duct tape!

 

[Dust2Dust]

use "sound levels" instead of SPL

That's what that means

Man, I've been trying to figure that out all weekend

 

[Lo-E]

I suppose "Touch the patch bay and you'll draw back a bloody stump." would be a little too aggressive, huh?

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Maybe I missed it but it sounds like there is no house sound tech that is part of the facility rental to an outside promoter coming in to use the facility.

If that's the case posted rules, equipment damage deposit ect. your going to have this things broken, stolen, over all jacked up sooner than later.

With any level of PA / AV system that is just turned over to any and everyone who walks into the building without a house tech looking over things is asking for trouble.

 

[J-Bass RMR]

Proper over/under instructions for coiling cables - that is literally one of the most important life skills I've ever learned bar none!

Another important skill is motivating your band-mates to follow suit! (good luck with that!)

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

I think it's a great idea that will never work because... musicians...

 

[DonaldR]

Maybe request a deposit that would be refund if everything is identical as before they used it.

 

[ghiggin1079]

NOTHING that OP mentioned in my head sounds unreasonable, or couldn't be written off as common sense, bit yet here we are

 

[Stylee Mousse]

I'm confused as to the nature of your venue and who uses it. Is it a theater? church?

As mentioned above my venue always provided a house tech to babysit outside folks. I shudder to think what would have happened without this! (Ever heard a 2" horn diaphragm "clapping" every time a kick drum is hit?)

And as a band engineer I heard "don't touch the racks" often enough at festivals, etc. guess what? I did whatever had to be done to fix the scenario, THEN put it back to pre-me touching settings.

 

[iammr2]

...

Keep booth clean, throw trash in proper receptacles.
If trash can is full or at the end of your show run place trash can in the circ ring for pickup.

...

You want them to empty the trash cans??

 

[AK Bass Guy]

All seems reasonable and concisely expressed (the chat gpt version)...don't forget to mention "this venue operates in compliance with all local noise ordinances" (whether there are any, or not), and the first rule should be "We provide this equipment for our partners who can follow the rules....if you don't, we won't ".

I like this and just now a an event manager asked me to add in db restriction based on muni ordinance. So I got to do some digging into muni code.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

I'm confused as to the nature of your venue and who uses it. Is it a theater? church?

As mentioned above my venue always provided a house tech to babysit outside folks. I shudder to think what would have happened without this! (Ever heard a 2" horn diaphragm "clapping" every time a kick drum is hit?)

And as a band engineer I heard "don't touch the racks" often enough at festivals, etc. guess what? I did whatever had to be done to fix the scenario, THEN put it back to pre-me touching settings.

It's a multi theater venue. The type of events vary from rock and roll to opera to symphony to comedians.
We have local techs that are vetted to run shows or to "babysit" a traveling engineer.
The racks are a big issue for me because everything is built into the architecture and routes back to the racks.
So the racks aren't generic "rack'n'stack". They are the place ale signal routing goes through.

This is the patch bay of the large house. The back of the patch bay is a rats nest of copper.
It should scare most people away from touching it but not always.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

I suppose "Touch the patch bay and you'll draw back a bloody stump." would be a little too aggressive, huh?

What I think and what I say are 2 different things, but needless to say I'm not very happy when I've been troubleshooting an issue for over an hour and I find someone has unpatched something from the back of the racks.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

Maybe I missed it but it sounds like there is no house sound tech that is part of the facility rental to an outside promoter coming in to use the facility.

If that's the case posted rules, equipment damage deposit ect. your going to have this things broken, stolen, over all jacked up sooner than later.

With any level of PA / AV system that is just turned over to any and everyone who walks into the building without a house tech looking over things is asking for trouble.

Here is the structure.
Client rents space. Hires building vetted crew to load in, load out, and run show.
I am the guy that keeps everything running, fixes and repairs, mentors, signs out gear, and make sure everyone is working safe and not abusing gear.
Unfortunately I'm not just babysitting sound but lighting, and fly when needed.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

You want them to empty the trash cans??

Not empty the can but place full can where janitorial will pick it up. Pickup spot is 5' away from booth.
As someone who worked janitorial in the same venue during Covid because it was a gig and shows weren't happening, I don't want them pulling trash out of cans. Usually leads to making more of a mess.

Say what you want about janitorial work, but it's quite zen and you don't take your work home with you.
Hard work, but rewarding. People also tend to show more appreciation when they know they can sit on a clean toilet after you've cleaned the restroom.

 

[AK Bass Guy]

NOTHING that OP mentioned in my head sounds unreasonable, or couldn't be written off as common sense, bit yet here we are

If common sense was still common. 20 years ago when I was on the other side we didn't need signs that said stuff like, zero out your board, don't touch stuff that isn't yours, and don't trash the booth or front of house.
If you acted unprofessional you'd hear about it in no nice terms from the more experienced engineers.
Possible not get booked for a gig for a while if the behavior was really egregious.

 

[Lefty Joe]

So what do you think about the basic framework I have established?
I don't want to come off as a complete jerk but I do want to be stern about certain things.

Good clear rules -- although of course rules (like laws) are only as good as the ability to enforce them.

I don't want to say that musicians are thick-headed twits or anything But I have found need to make rules myself, regarding personal and proprietary boundaries, which others sometimes see as unnecessary or arbitrary.

It's not surprising, really, because we're talking about something that many people do essentially as a hobby -- and hobbies are for enjoyment, so "why ya harshing my vibe bro" can not only pass as legit objection, but even be supported by others of the same mind.

However, there's also "my roof, my rules" to consider: if you're paying the cost to be the boss, you can set limits and rules.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Here is the structure.
Client rents space. Hires building vetted crew to load in, load out, and run show.
I am the guy that keeps everything running, fixes and repairs, mentors, signs out gear, and make sure everyone is working safe and not abusing gear.
Unfortunately I'm not just babysitting sound but lighting, and fly when needed.

You got your hands full!

For some reason a lot pf people can not comprehend a patch bay or even something as simple as say sub snake channel 6 that ends up connecting to mixer input 20.

I've actually pulled a few patch bays from installations during an upgrade, they were never understood and or used with the pass through connections becoming intermittent from lack of use and causing issues

 

[AK Bass Guy]

You got your hands full!

For some reason a lot pf people can not comprehend a patch bay or even something as simple as say sub snake channel 6 that ends up connecting to mixer input 20.

I've actually pulled a few patch bays from installations during an upgrade, they were never understood and or used with the pass through connections becoming intermittent from lack of use and causing issues

Those patch bays, we have 3 stages with them, are by far the biggest headache I have. Because of the reason you mentioned. Everyone who wants to be vetted must know how to use the patch bays and for the younger digital generation anything anything analog is a foreign concept.

While I do like copper and analog, for live music/theater I'd rather have a Dante system.

 

[amper]

It is pretty standard practice in the industry to install mechanisms that prevent operators from increasing the maximum possible SPL output of the system. This is typically done by a master engineer calibrating the system to a maximum SPL level using pink noise, and then placing physical locks over the master controls on the console and amplifiers so they can't be raised higher than 0 dB.

In small venues, my target is peak SPL of 96 dBA (slow response) at the center of the house/dance floor, Basically, if you are wincing, it's too loud. Many people will probably consider this too loud, and others will consider it too soft, but this is based upon my experience engineering shows at out local Boys & Girls Club, and the last thing we want is to have parents suing the organization for making their kids deaf.

Even at that level, it's common to have bands come in and have their stage amps putting out 112+ dBA measured at the center of the house without the help of the PA system, which is not only unbearable in a small room, but actually dangerous. Incoming acts have to be policed.

As a comparison, the MPAA movie theatre standard is peaks of 103 dBA for the loudest explosions. The systems are supposed to be calibrated to 83 dBA at -20 dBFS (full scale), so 0 dBFS is 103 dBA.