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“Hear me, see me”
Words from Tommy-The Rock Opera by The Who
Engaging as many of an audience's senses as possible makes the difference between a great event and one that has a “wow” factor. The natural association between sight and sound plays an important role in how you will set the mood and tone of an event. Playing the right music to accompany various aspects of the event will determine how the audience perceives those elements and what they will remember about them. Sound is an important component of event production. How that sound reaches the audience, whether it is simple background music, a headline speaker or a singer on stage, depends on two factors: the quality of the audio system and the venue's acoustics.
Jan Moxley is an event tour and production manager specializing in advance coordination for events produced internationally. Jan has worked as an independent contractor and consultant for production and management companies to produce music festivals and tour productions, stage plays, industrials, conventions, trade shows and sporting events and is a veteran of more than 1000 live event productions. The following is an except from his book The Advanced Coordination Manual and will help you to understand some of the basic principles of sound and lighting coordination.
“Venue acoustics can range from outstanding to awful, depending on what’s inside the venue. The facility’s décor can be a significant factor. If the venue is large and its walls have hard, flat surfaces, the sound will reverberate. This makes sound check for concerts, and other events, especially difficult because the sound will change as soon as the audience arrives, which means you must then fine-tune the sound during the first few minutes of the show.”
“The Front of House (FOH) mixing console should always be directly in front of the main speakers, either in the center or just off the center. You do not want to be under a balcony or in a booth; the sound coming from the speakers should have no obstructions from overhead or in front. This will assure a clear, unobstructed sound to mix. Remember that in any venue the best sounding mix will be at the FOH console. Sound engineers should walk to other areas of the auditorium during sound check to listen to the mix and adjust it accordingly to get a good balance of sound everywhere. Any mix platform you construct may be shared by the lighting operator and FOH lighting equipment.”
At the stage, “stage monitor systems are necessary for a good show. If artists cannot hear themselves or each other, chances are they will not deliver their best performance. Sound Wings are “in front of the stage wings. Or, in a proscenium theater, they are downstage of the proscenium. The sound wings are where the main speakers, amplifiers and crossovers are located. If you are bringing sound into the venue, you will have to know the location and dimensions of the access to the wings, as well as any weight restrictions. This is important, especially if you happen to be loading in heavy speaker cabinets. The sound wings will have to be reinforced if they cannot hold the weight. Be sure that lighting has been installed in the sound wings. Available light can be blocked by stacked speaker cabinets, and working in the dark is dangerous.”
“The backstage area is defined by the staging area location. In a theater or arena end stage configuration, this is the area off-stage behind the main curtain line. Its location is within the production staging area but is not always adjacent to the staging area. During some stage productions it may be located a short distance away. If you are producing a show in a theater-in-the-round or in an arena with a center stage, consider backstage to be the area surrounding the dressing room or locker room that is off-limits to the public, and where the production office, artist, and crew entrances and catering are located,” (Moxley, 1996).
Jose Campos suggests “getting the light right. Have you ever sat in a white room with white fluorescent lighting for eight hours? How about a banquet hall with multi-tiered crystal chandeliers 20 feet above your head and wall sconces with pale-yellow glass shades? In the former, after about four hours you begin to suffer from what feels like “white-out” blindness. It is physically draining. When evaluating your next meeting space, pay attention to how the lighting makes you feel, and how it will affect attendees’ concentration and mood” (Campos, September 2002). It’s akin to being on top of a mountain in winter, break up the whiteness. “When we are handling the rider requirements for a headline entertainer, even if not called for on the lighting plot, we will always bring in uplights to place behind the drummer or by columns or just plain in front of the black or burgundy curtain used as a back drop on the stage,” says an employee of Mark Sonder Productions.
See this issue's featured
Tips: Breaking into The Event Production Market, by Ken Deans
This issue's featured artist: 50 Cent
 Mark
Sonder, CSEP is the Chief Entertainment Officer of Mark Sonder
Productions, a leading national entertainment agency designing
headline talent and production services for large venues,
corporations and associations. In addition, Sonder sits on
the faculty of The George Washington University, Stratford
University, Northern Virginia Community College, University
of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) and The University of the West
Indies. Event
Entertainment and Production is the book published by
Wiley authored by Sonder.
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