All About Business
Although the band hired me, I’ve done enough events like this to know that the event planner calls the shots, often at the direction of the client paying the bills.
If the planner tells me to turn it down, I do – even if the band wants me to turn it up.
Luckily in this particular case, the band has done these types of events for years, so they understand that it’s all about business.
(As far as I can tell, the pecking order seems to be, in order of importance: attendees, food, interior design, floral, lighting, sound, entertainment.)
At sound check, the event planner asked me to turn up the volume.
I happily complied, knowing that once the party started I would almost certainly be asked to turn it down. (It’s usually best to keep this knowledge to yourself and let the situation play out rather than offer any resistance.)
I arranged my mix accordingly, putting the band on a VCA and inserting a compressor on the main stereo bus.
I also decided that, when asked to turn down the volume, I could decrease the level of the delays and main arrays while still maintaining the volume (and energy) on the dance floor by turning up the level in the front fills.
The Point
Sure enough, as soon as the band hit the stage, a woman I’d never seen before asked me to turn down the volume.
I said O.K., and politely asked her name, and then asked the system tech to radio the event planner and find out if the woman had the authority to make the request. The event planner said yes – the woman was the assistant to the NFL commissioner.
Here, finally, was my real main audience f o r the event. The person paying the bills for a corporate event wants less volume, then no problem.
I turned down the arrays a couple of notches and also took some 2-3 K bite out of them, then brightened up the overall mix (8 kHz-plus) a bit for clarity, and pushed up the volume in the front fills.
For the next three hours, the band played, the party-goers drank, ate, schmoozed (and finally started to dance), and I was left to actually mix the show instead of responding to requests to turn it up or down.
The event planner will most likely book the band again, I will most likely mix the band again, and we can all continue to make a living.
And that’s the point. To make a living working in sound, we often find ourselves having to do things that those paying the bills find enjoyable.
Do it, and politely, and you just might be asked back.
Nick Pellicciotto has worked in the live sound industry for over 15 years, touring as a mix engineer for acts like Fugazi, Lucinda Williams, and Modest Mouse.