Ground stacked mains

[Russell1234]

Would like to know from others what is the widest venue you have ever covered evenly using only ground stacked gear

[Square]

Your question has a lot of variables:

 

1) When you say "width", do you mean the distance from left to right as the crowd looks at the stage or do you mean the distance from the lip of the stage to the back end of the crowd?

 

2)Not giving a box count or crowd size means that we can use the thousands of outdoor concerts in the past that were run ground staked before flying became the norm as evidence of some pretty serious coverage /volume.

 

As for me personally, here is a shot of one of my outdoor venues. They have remodeled the park since this shot was taken, but at the time of this photo the audience area was basically a half circle with about 200 feet from the lip of the stage to the end of the expected audience area (as in a 200' deep arc for 180 degrees going away from the stage). I would only do smaller, quiter events at this stage with my rig (crowd size under 1500).

 

My rig is 8 EV QRX 153's over 8 EV QRx218's (4 & 4 a side), each side is powered by a single QSC 6.0 on lows, a QSC 4.0 on mids and a QSC 1.8 on high-mid/highs (passive crossover). The amp configuration gives me roughly 20,000 watts based on the nominal ohm-age presented to the amps.

 

We measured 115db-c weight at the console, with the console being 75-80 feet from the lip of the stage. I would figue you should cut at least another 8db off of that for the 200' mark.

 

[agedhorse]

What do you mean?

 

I have ground stacked 16 feet high and covered 15k at a pollitical rally many years ago. Almost 140 degrees width.

[Russell1234]

The purpose of my post was to try to find out if there is a correlation between venue size square footage and the willingness to want to fly gear.

 

If I were to interview sound engineers capable of not only stacking their gear, but also flying it, could I find the threshold of where their gear goes from being ground stacked to being flown?

 

I have an upcoming gig that is really important for me to get right and I know that the equipment at hand will not be adequate to cover it. If the venue would require speakers to be flown in order to have adequate coverage, I will need to outsource it to a SOUNDCO able to do so.

 

That is something I really don

[Mogwix]

 

If I were to interview sound engineers capable of not only stacking their gear, but also flying it, could I find the threshold of where their gear goes from being ground stacked to being flown?

 

It depends. I've flown rigs for a 50 person luncheon, and ground stacked rigs for thousands of people in a field.

 

Flying the rig or not is just one of many options. I don't have any set criteria for when I'll fly my PA. I'll fly the speakers when doing so allows me better coverage, or when sight lines are a concern. Generally though, it's usually just a hassle and rather unnecessary. I tend to only fly boxes when I'm setting up the trussing for the lights.

[agedhorse]

It really all depends. Sometimes I will stack on scaffolding and aluminum plank-deck. That's often as high as a low trim fly.

[Russell1234]

The venue I am preparing for is a partitioned convention center room that when opened, will seat 1200 people. The audience area is very wide on our side of the room but is not very deep. (100ft x 60ft)

 

It is a little larger than an official basketball court. The stage area though is at center court pushed back towards a sideline.

 

The large venues I have covered have been more square-shaped than rectangular and are easily covered with 4 JBL SRX725