Flyable small BAR PA?

[drummer_jay]

I'm out the door for a show... Great band... Small bar... Place will be PACKED, but it's so damn tight.. Mainly the performance area. One of the oldest buildings in Kansas City.. (so you can imagine)

 

Got me thinking. Any ideas how to SAFELY have a small PA for small bars that can be flown. Not using the buildings structure (never seen a bar have rigging points!)

 

I like the Peavey rig.. Looks like it comes with a Genie material style lift.

 

Just thinking it would be great to get the spears to the ceiling firing slightly down.. Maybe even single 18's flown too? Clean up the stage and the look!?!

 

Just thinking here.. Anyone seen this work or be used?

[Coaster]

got truss?

 

i would be apprehensive about doing this in a bar, too many things can go wrong quickly.

[witesol]

you could crank up a speaker or two with a small crank stand like a global st-132. i'd say one or two 12+ configuration per side at most.. flying subs in a bar..hmm

[imnotded]

if it was on a stage, maybe. But the last thing you want is "that guy who has put the rigging up a bunch of times" who is plastered and shows his friend how to use it even though he has no clue. Next thing you know its on the ground. I've learned, in my short (so far) life of bar gigs, that you can never underestimate the power of drunk people.

[rotebass]

Why would you want to go through all that effort in a bar? The stands you need to lift the truss would take up more space than a sub with tops on a pole.

[Shaster]

Admirable thought, but I like the others, tend to think it's not worth the risk. It could improve the sound in many, if not most cases but so would bringing in a $100K.

 

In the words of one of my previous band leaders "the more you drink, the better we sound" or his twist on that "the more you sound, the drunker we get".

 

Most people are clumsy, even before they start drinking.

[Zeromus-X]

We fly our mains every show, and we put the subs under the drum riser. If you don't have a drum riser... maybe it's time to make one, using your subs as the front supports and legs in the back equally as tall? It's very easy to do, especially if you just want a big square. And if you make it the size of the drums, it doesn't even take up any more space on stage.

 

Here's our rig --

 

Older shot, but you can see the mains:

 

Subs:

 

Mains are Meyer UPA-1C, subs USW-1. All with factory-installed fly points. Each main is flown from two separate points, and is rated for 500 lbs. I don't know if that's the safety rating or the failure rating, but it's way more than the cabinets weigh. We're using heavy chain and large carabiners, and we snap the carabiners right onto the speakers, crank the stands up, and we're good to go.

 

The truss is Global mini-truss, 20 foot span. Stands are Global crank stands, not their bottom-end ones (232s?). Rear truss is the same.

[MrJoshua]

I get nervous enough putting speakers on stands at a bar gig. I can only imagine how nervous I'd be with them hanging from a truss, just waiting for some guy to start trying to show off how many pull-ups he can do and impress the drunk girls dancing in front of the stage...

 

ZX, don't you find that you lose a lot of the subs' effectiveness by having them on stage instead of on the floor? If you have a very solid stage, fine, but it seems like most places around here the stage is basically a hollow wooden box and the energy from the subs is just shaking the stage around instead of pushing bass out to the audience unless I put them on the floor.

[Flogger59]

If you have an extravagent budget, there is this ground stack that no drunk will ever pull over.

http://www.renkus-heinz.com/loudspeakers/iclive/index.html

[abzurd]

 

If you have an extravagent budget, there is this ground stack that no drunk will ever pull over. http://www.renkus-heinz.com/loudspeakers/iclive/index.html

 

 

I've come across them before, but can't find any real pricing.

[Zeromus-X]

While the subs are probably more efficient on the floor, we've got more bass than we'll ever use. When we turn on the break music, I'm often afraid we're going to knock down structural parts of the venues if we crank it.

 

For some venues we still put them on the floor -- such as if it's a really tall stage, or we're outdoors and need every bit we can get out of the system. But for the other 99% of the gigs, this is more than enough, and allows us to use a minimal amount of floor space (i.e. more dance floor).

 

Our only problem in the last band was that people would tend to dance basically under the truss, which meant they'd hear almost nothing from the tops, which were ten feet each to their left and right as opposed to the two subwoofers right in front of them. If this is a problem with the new band we'll just toss a center fill on the drum riser.

[Flogger59]

 

I've come across them before, but can't find any real pricing.

 

 

Up here in Canada you're looking at about $25k a side.

[hrnlip]

We've used multiple "Bunji" style cords to help secure the cabinets while they're on stands.