Largest gig so far

[DJ Elevate]

Hey guys,

I'm going to be doing a 400-500 person event in March and I'm wondering if what I normally bring for my largest events will be enough.

For the event I'm planning on bringing my usual setup for larger events:
2x QSC K12.2s
2x QSC K10s
2x QSC KW181s
1x QSC KSub

I know the KSub will be a joke for this event but figure I need all the help I can get.

This event will be on the USS Midway - as long as weather holds it will be on the top deck (outside) - it won't be the entire deck but a much smaller section of it. I just nailed down the booking so I'm waiting to get the event coordinator contact info to get a floor plan and hopefully do a site survey. This setup has done very well in 300 person gigs but they were all indoors. It's a military ceremony event with 1-1.5 hrs of dance music toward the end. Do you guys think it will be enough in your experience?

[sss18734]

It really depends on their expectations!

But no, for true dance-level music outdoors, you are nowhere near you need to be.

[conanski]

I don't think what you have is even remotely close to being enough which is to say even if you doubled up on the subs and K12s you would still be bringing a knife to a gun fight, so IMO this would be a good event to bring in a 3rd party with a proper outdoor PA system.

[pete]

Sounds like a really cool gig, congrats.

Being that it is on an aircraft carrier, the sound will get sucked out of virtually any system.
Compared to a gig indoors, you'll be missing 4 walls and a ceiling, plus you are using a small surface area.
So you can multiply the amount of equipment you need to bring for any normal gig, depending on your budget and how loud you wanna go.

[DJ Elevate]

Yeah... I figured this was going to be a learning experience.

There's only going to be about 1 hour of actual dance music (The rest will be ceremony music, guest speakers, dinner, etc.), and these guys are on a budget so I guess I'll have to see how things go. I'll see if I can talk them into doubling up on equipment.

[jazzyj]

I think you have what you need. This is NOT a music festival (from what you've described). The people in the back don't actually want to hear the music at the same spl/db level as the people closer to you. As long as you explain this to the company and they agree that you're not trying to flood the entire deck with music at high levels, you're fine.

[wave180]

Maybe rent a pair of DSR12s and double your subs (4 KW181s).