Venue shenanigans

[Lava]

Rock on

 

[IanStephenson]

Venue owner didn’t think to check to see if his breakers could handle a 20,000w PA system...

While ultimately everything that happens at the venue falls on the owner, seems like he payed a PA company to come in and do a job, which they bodged. It's not within scope of a venue managers expertise to understand the issues of electrical power when running a large PA.

It is VERY MUCH within the scope of a PA hire company to make clear the hook up they require and check that their equipment is correctly installed before turning it on.

 

[Hawk256]

Holy crap

Very common in the 80's. Most clubs never had the breaker cover installed because someone was always tapping into it.

 

[five7]

Sound guy needs a distro system for that large of sound system. Tie into the mains and be done.

 

[HardNHeavy]

atleast you got to play a couple sets......i've had power shut-off deliberately because we were too loud in NYC....imagine that

 

[Slevage]

Were you paid by the set or for the night?

As long as you were paid the agreed amount and you had fun, your gig was a success.
I’ve done church and community functions where there were about 200 raffle prizes. Breaks were very long and the food was good.

 

[erratick]

4 sets? How long was that gig? All day event? Good for you.

Around here, I rarely see more than 2-3 sets total. Sometimes 1 set with an encore.

 

[Stingray5]

Apparently, neither did the sound guy?!

Exactly. We don't use sound guys we run our own sound, but in unfamiliar venues we always sort out any electrical issues during setup/soundcheck so it's all resolved before the gig begins.

 

[Norm Nelson]

Heh. I play Sundays in a church that gets reaaaaaally hot in the summer. One day the pastor had rolled in a bunch of portable air conditioning units. I was like uhhhhhh and he said no no problem I plugged everything in and turned it on and it stayed on! That lasted until the first chord ... Glad the party went on! Whenever we're playing in a non-pro venue I always check how many amps everyone needs ...