Speaker Needs - Outdoor 1500-2000 people

[jazzyj]

Soooo we've been doing weddings anywhere in the 150-300 range for years now and have acquired several speakers along the way... some DJF dislike and maybe some that DJF may like.. lol but either way, we have several tops now and a couple of subs.

Just got asked to quote for a company picnic that is going to take place outdoors and with some where between 1500-2000 people.

I have no idea how much "speakerage" I shall need.

In my mind, I have ideas floating around like... ok this is NOT a music festival... but we will be on a stage... there will be announcements to be made, maybe a speech or two from company officials... but there will be other things going on during the picnic besides music... how much of this outdoor space do they want to "flood" with music... and so some of these things I will get answers on when I meet with the organizer...

But let's say they wanted a good amount of thump & sound coming from the stage... how many tops & subs am I going to need? Anybody care to throw out a few educated guesses?

[Daniel S]

You would be looking at speakers that are arrayable in some way. I'd say at least four tops per side and four or more subs depending on the type of sub.

[conanski]

But let's say they wanted a good amount of thump & sound coming from the stage... how many tops & subs am I going to need? Anybody care to throw out a few educated guesses?

You could go down to the local rental house and fill a cube van with DJ class PA speakers.... and all that would still only be enough to just make some noise, people at rear of your event would know that there is something going on over at the stage but they may or may not be able to clearly hear it. What I'm saying is that more speakers isn't the correct answer, much better more powerful speakers is. By your own admission you aren't trying to generate festival sound levels but you do want clarity over a wide area so I suggest you shop around for a local provider that has a decent ground stacked array system and see what it costs to rent. If you find somebody that has an old school EAW KF point source array system or similar you will get the results you want for reasonable cost. No truss or hoists needed for these they just pile up in a big stack, but the key is they were designed to be deployed this way while your DJ speakers were not so the coverage you get will be much better. And it's not worth owning these things unless you are doing this type event all the time, the boxes are hugh and heavy so you won't carry them around for your average 150 person DJ event.

[jazzyj]

You could go down to the local rental house and fill a cube van with DJ class PA speakers.... and all that would still only be enough to just make some noise, people at rear of your event would know that there is something going on over at the stage but they may or may not be able to clearly hear it. What I'm saying is that more speakers isn't the correct answer, much better more powerful speakers is. By your own admission you aren't trying to generate festival sound levels but you do want clarity over a wide area so I suggest you shop around for a local provider that has a decent ground stacked array system and see what it costs to rent. If you find somebody that has an old school EAW KF point source array system or similar you will get the results you want for reasonable cost. No truss or hoists needed for these they just pile up in a big stack, but the key is they were designed to be deployed this way while your DJ speakers were not so the coverage you get will be much better. And it's not worth owning these things unless you are doing this type event all the time, the boxes are hugh and heavy so you won't carry them around for your average 150 person DJ event.

Agreed. Thanks for the info - that looks like the route im going; already contacted 6 locals production companies for quotes. Thank you!

[light-o-matic]

Yea that is the right choice.. because if I remember what you have correctly, there's no way to scale from that to what you need for this gig. Renting is a much safer bet.

As far as what type of speakers: In the realm of powered dj targeted speakers, something like a pair of EV ETX35P's per side with 4 or more matching subs could do it. Specifically mentioning that model because it has a horn loaded midrange yet still can go on a (sturdy, non cheap) speaker stand. You would want a top in that class or higher. If not a 3 way with a horn loaded mid then a two way with a 1.4 inch throat or 2 inch throat (that's throat size, not diaphragm size). With a narrow dispersion (55-75 degrees horizontal).

You will find these kinds of things only in a few models in the dj realm eg the ETX35p and the RCF 745 both qualify, maybe the JBL STX too.. two of them per side is quite capable.

But something of that level is the minimum to get a really commanding vocal sound a couple of hundred feet back over a noisy crowd.

Then you get into the pro level boxes you don't really see in music stores...