Among many recent entrants into the sound profession, I’ve noticed a lack of knowledge when it comes to wiring a stage.

Perhaps it’s due to a lot of sound engineering schools being essentially studio-based courses. Or maybe it’s simply that it’s difficult to get a young mind to concentrate on something as mundane as running cable when there’s a digital board with loads of lights and buttons sitting nearby!

Improper wiring of a stage makes for more work when it comes to wrapping up at the end of the night, makes it difficult to trace any faulty cables that may arise during sound check or during the gig, and can cause trip hazards for artists and crew on- or backstage.

This is the way I was taught years ago, and the basic method is largely the same on every stage right up to the top level. Before we begin our little primer we should clarify a few terms:

Upstage – The part of the stage furthest from the audience.
Downstage – The part of the stage closest to the audience.
Stage Left – The side of the stage to your left as you stand onstage and face the audience.
Stage Right – The side of the stage to your right as you stand onstage and face the audience.

Mains Cable

Heavy mains cable such as 3-phase feeder cable should always be kept off the stage. Excess mains cable should never be left tightly coiled but left in a neat figure of eight pattern under the stage if possible but certainly out of the way of walkways.

When running lighter gauge cable from the mains distro to amplifier racks, use the shortest length possible to avoid having large coils of excess cable in areas where monitor engineers, guitar technicians and other stagehands are likely to be working. Leave short lengths of surplus cable under amp racks or in the dead space often found behind the amplifier racks.

Try to ensure that all mains cable to amplifiers follows a similar path, to avoid tangles during load out. Make sure it looks neat; if it doesn’t, you probably should redo your work.

When running electrical cables to onstage power drops, best practice is to have at least an upstage and a downstage feed. Try to run mains cable upstage on the drum riser, following other cable runs for monitors and signal cables if possible.

The upstage line will feed mainly guitar and bass amps (backline). The downstage power feed should be downstage of the monitors, and again should follow monitor and signal cable runs. This feed will generally be required to power guitarist tuners and pedalboards and keyboards.

Again, avoid using cables that are too long. Tuck any excess cable under on-stage risers or off-stage where possible. That way, if you need to move the power drop, the extra cable is reasonably accessible. The key is to never cross the performance area (i.e., the space between the drum kit and the monitor line) with cable.

Similar common sense applies to running loudspeaker cable. With stage monitors, leave some slack in the cable at the loudspeaker end, otherwise you’re going to be pulling up all the tape and doing it again as soon as a musician asks you to move the monitor.

Signal Cable

Line systems (“multis,” “snakes,” etc.) from the stage to the front of house position should be judiciously protected with rubber mats and/or cable ramps, or even by creating an audience-free zone in the center of the venue. In an ideal world, these would be flown, but it’s rarely an option and also creates other challenges.

Many venues have cable ducts designed to quickly run line-systems and other control cable to front of house. Modern Ethernet and fiber have simplified this part of cable management.

Onstage, the keys to quick, tidy and accurate signal cable patching are sub-snake boxes and a bit of planning. If you’ve a stage plan, identify where the main cabling areas are going to be.

Drum kits will generally take at least eight channels, with a couple of channels for the nearby bass rig and two vocals, you’re looking at a minimum of 12 lines in close proximity. Rather than running 12 long cables over and back to the main stage box, drop a 12-way sub stage box in front of the kit and run twelve short cables to the microphones and direct boxes (DIs) required. It comes down to simple math: it’s far quicker to wrap up a single 50-foot stage box cable and a dozen 19-foot cables (a total of about 170 feet of cable) than wrapping up 12 35-foot cables (a total of almost 400 feet).

Other areas possibly requiring stage boxes are keyboard-land, the front line of vocals with acoustic guitars, and so on. Label stage boxes with the main input number and what this channel is for (center vocal, snare, kick, whatever).

Once again, the same rules for running cable apply: follow the other cabling routes, use shortest cable necessary, and never cross the performance area or stage-access routes. Finally, leave any excess neatly coiled under mic stands. Always keep excess as close to the source – this makes it easy to move a mic later on.

Start by running mic cable from the main stage box or the sub-snake box. There are two good reasons for this: (1) it means the excess will always be by the mic and, (2) if you’re working with a team, there’s no chance of one of you accidentally plugging in the wrong mic into the wrong channel.

Also remember to keep a few cables handy onstage as replacements if needed. Don’t close the cable box and stash it in some hard-to-access place.

Remember the old saying: the load-out begins at the load-in. By using some common sense, you’ll have more time to make sound, tune the system, and troubleshoot any problems arising by following these ground rules.

In addition, your stages will be safer, your cables will last longer, and you’ll make fewer mistakes. And you’ll be heading home from the gig earlier.