Technical
What we need from your venue.
Every question a venue asks before it will confirm a band, answered on one page. Stage, power, channels, load-in and volume, at every size we sell. Send the link to the venue and to your AV lead; the six things worth confirming at contract are at the bottom.
The stage
Published stage-rental guidance for a seven to ten-piece band runs to 24 by 24 feet. That figure is written to be safe for any band anyone might book, and it is close to double what this one takes. Renting to it costs you a few hundred dollars and a chunk of floor your guests wanted.
So there are two numbers below. The first is what we ask for, where the band is comfortable and the sightlines work. The second is the smallest we will play on. Between them nothing breaks; the band just gets tighter, and tightness is audible before it is visible.
| Size | Footprint we ask for | Smallest we will take | Who is on it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duo | 8 by 6 ft | 6 by 5 ft | Guitar and upright bass |
| Trio | 12 by 8 ft | 10 by 6 ft | Guitar, bass and drums |
| Quartet | 14 by 10 ft | 12 by 8 ft | Trio plus a horn or a voice |
| Quintet | 16 by 12 ft | 12 by 10 ft | Keys and voice, guitar and voice, bass, drums, saxophone |
| Seven-piece | 20 by 12 ft | 16 by 10 ft | The quintet plus trumpet and trombone |
| Ten-piece | 24 by 14 ft | 20 by 12 ft | Three voices, guitar, bass, drums, keys, trumpet, trombone, saxophone |
| Thirteen-piece | 28 by 16 ft | 24 by 14 ft | The ten-piece plus percussion, second guitar and second keys |
| DJ | 6 by 4 ft | 6 by 3 ft | Booth, controller and the house of our own PA |
Depth before width if you have to choose. A band squeezed narrow still works; a band with no depth puts the drums in the singer’s back.
Risers, floors and ceilings
- We do not require a stage
- A band plays fine on a floor, and most of our Denver bookings are on one. A riser is a sightline decision for rooms over about 150 guests, not a technical requirement.
- We do not supply one either
- If you want a riser, it comes from the venue or your production company. Tell us the height and we will plan the load-in around it; 12 to 24 inches is normal and anything over 24 needs a rail behind the drums.
- Ceiling height
- Ten feet clear above the stage surface. Lighting stands go to nine, and a low ceiling over a riser is the one constraint that cannot be solved on the day.
- Surface
- Level and solid. Deck that flexes under a drummer will be heard through every microphone on the stage. Carpet is fine; grass and gravel need a deck under the band.
Power
This is the requirement venues get wrong most often, and it is the one that ruins a night rather than complicating it. Dedicated is the operative word. A 20-amp circuit shared with catering warmers, a coffee urn or a lighting truss will trip, and it will trip at the moment everything is switched on at once, which is the moment the room is full.
Circuits need to be within about 50 feet of the stage. We bring our own distribution and cable and we do not need the venue to supply either. What we need from the venue is the circuits, confirmed in writing, before the day.
| Size | Channels at the desk | Dedicated 20A circuits |
|---|---|---|
| Duo | 3 | 1 |
| Trio | 8 | 1 |
| Quartet | 10 | 2 |
| Quintet | 17 | 2 |
| Seven-piece | 19 | 3 |
| Ten-piece | 21 | 3 |
| Thirteen-piece | 26 | 4 |
| DJ | 3 | 1 |
Channel counts are what arrives at the desk, including one announcement microphone on its own channel and a stereo playback pair from the quintet up. Your AV lead will ask for this number.
Outdoors, and other places without a wall socket
A generator works if it is a quiet one, properly grounded, and sized with headroom above the figures above. A domestic generator at the edge of a lawn is not that, and the noise floor it adds sits underneath every quiet moment of the evening.
Cover over the band and over the desk is not optional outdoors, in any forecast. Colorado evenings drop fast enough that the temperature at the last set is a different instrument problem from the temperature at sound check, and by the end of a damp night the players are retuning between songs. If there is a move-indoors plan, it needs a decision time written into the run of show and a person named to make the call.
Load-in and strike
Times below are from the vehicle arriving to the band being ready for sound check, assuming a ground-floor room with parking within a reasonable push. Add 30 minutes for an elevator, and add 30 more if the elevator is shared with catering during their load-in.
| Size | Load-in and setup | Strike | Vehicles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duo | 60 min | 45 min | 1 |
| Trio | 60 min | 45 min | 1 |
| Quartet | 90 min | 60 min | 1 |
| Quintet | 90 min | 60 min | 1 |
| Seven-piece | 2 hrs | 75 min | 2 |
| Ten-piece | 2 hrs | 90 min | 2 |
| Thirteen-piece | 2.5 hrs | 90 min | 3 |
| DJ | 45 min | 30 min | 1 |
- Doors and corridors
- 36 inches clear. The widest single item is the bass amp or a keyboard case; nothing needs a double door, but a 30-inch doorway with a turn in it will cost you 20 minutes.
- Elevator
- A car of about 4 by 6 feet takes everything in several trips. Tell us the window we have it in and we will work inside the window rather than discovering it.
- Sound check
- 30 minutes once the band is set, and it finishes 60 minutes before the first guest arrives. That gap is not padding. It is where the problems found at sound check get fixed.
- Where the cases live
- Out of sight of guests, and not in the kitchen path. Any back-of-house corner works. If there is nowhere, tell us at contract and the cases go back to the vehicles, which adds 20 minutes to the strike.
- Strike
- Begins after the last note, not before. We do not break down during the final set, and nothing gets carried through a room with guests still in it unless the venue requires it.
Volume
Volume is a decision somebody makes in advance and writes into the run of show. Left undecided it gets made at 8:40pm by whoever is standing nearest the desk, and that person is guessing.
- Ceremony, cocktails and dinner, measured at the nearest table
- 65 to 72 dBA
- Remarks, awards and anything on a microphone that is not us
- Silent
- Dancing, measured on the floor
- 88 to 95 dBA
- Peaks during the last hour
- 100 dBA
If the venue enforces a cap, give us the number when you book rather than on the night. A band told at contract that the ceiling is 95 dBA builds a different night, with the arrangements and the instrumentation chosen to land inside it. A band told at 10pm just gets quieter, which is the version everyone can hear going wrong.
Curfews are honoured as written. Where there is one, the last twenty minutes get shaped so the night finishes on the song it should finish on, rather than stopping mid-set because the clock ran out.
What we need confirmed, and when
Six things. All of them are answers the venue already has, and none of them take longer than one email to get. Confirmed at contract, they stop being risks.
- The circuits, by count, and that they are dedicated
- The stage or the floor area, in feet, and the riser height if there is one
- The load-in door, the route, and the elevator window if there is an elevator
- Where the vehicles park and for how long
- Any decibel cap, as a number, and any curfew, as a time
- Somewhere out of sight for cases and for players to change
Not sure of an answer? Send us the venue name. Most of the rooms on the Front Range and in the mountain corridor are known quantities, and where one is not we will call them ourselves.
Anything here that your venue disagrees with?
Send us the room and we will work it out with them directly, before it is your problem.
More for planners: the run of show templates and the full question list.