Gigging in the Garden

[Graham56]

My covers band is playing outdoors at a private party in July.

We've been asked to play in their (very large) garden on a Saturday evening. There will be a marquee but that's about it. We need to supply everything else. Anyone got any tips about this, in terms of staying safe, staying out of jail or any other gotchas we might not have thought about?

The thoughts that occur to me:

[b]Water protection[/b] - we're inside the marquee so we'll be protected from above.

[b]Flooring[/b] - we'll need a stable floor for gear and drums. We also need to be insulated from any damp ground or the possibility of ground water coming in.

[b]Power[/b] - I think they'll be running leads from the normal house supply. We need keep cables and especially connnections covered and insulated from the ground. We run a small vox-only PA, one bass, one guitar (and pedal box), one harmonica amp. That should be OK from a load point of view. As long as we're all off the same ring we should avoid any 'clashes'.

[b]Lighting[/b] - I think we'll need to supply this too. We have access to some but I'll need to check the power consumption.

[b]Volume[/b] - we need to keep it sensible. The householder wants us to finish by midnight. They've also invited all the neighbours, side and back, to the party.

[b]Law[/b] - It is a private party. Should they have told the local council (a London Borough), or is that just inviting them to stick their oars in?

[b]Set[/b] - We've done parties before and we are flexible enough to respond to the crowd on the night. It'll depend on the weather too. If it has been a baking hot day (dream on...) we can start fairly summery and mellow before building up to a full-on drunken dance-athon at the end. It's a 50th so we've have a pretty good idea what will work.

[b]Sound balance[/b] - we do it ourselves, we don't have a sound guy/gal. We know what works indoors but have less experience of outdoors. We'll have a reliable friend in the audience who will shout advice but is there anything worth knowing about?


OK, what have I missed? And what are anyone's experiences of similar events?


Thanks

Graham

[leschirons]

A circut breaker would be a good idea and make sure that they're not using a bloody chip fryer in the house. They've killed about 6 gigs for me at restaurants.

You'll need to wipe everything down afterwards as it'll likely get damp later in the evening. If your instruments do get a bit damp, give them a wipe over after the gig and leave the case open when you get home.

Make doubly sure there is no-one there called "uncle George" he'll be the one that asks if it's going to be that loud all night when you first put the quiet background CD on.

Have a good gig.

[Jazzneck]

Hi Graham - have done a few of these and you seem to have most of the bases (no pun intended) covered.

POWER - we used to run a minimum of two UNWOUND extension leads from the house to the "stage" and make sure that you have fully operational circuit breakers connected at the house end!
Ensure that all connections are "off the floor" and covered.

FLOORING, for the poor drummer - Large sheet of chipboard worked well for us after he put his carpet on top.
For the rest of you real musicians - take a rug each.

SOUND - don't worry too much -set it as you would for a smallish pub and you should be OK - your harp player will be a bit happier as, for some reason, there seemed to be less propensity for feedback.

VOLUME - just be sensible, some git is bound to ask you to turn it down.

Basically, apply common sense, don't prewarn the authorities - AND HAVE A GOOD TIME!!!!

M.

[Thurbs]

Public liability insurance and PRS & PPL if playing covers.

[Slipperydick]

Run EVERYTHING FROM THE SAME TRIP, a plug top type like you use for a lawnmower will be fine.



Dont eat sausages that are not barbequed really well. and dont play with the grease on your fingers, its great at the time but yer strings will sound crap next day.

[Len_derby]

Played one of these garden gigs last Saturday. In spite of the canvas covering there was an unpredictable breeze wafting about. My setlist and cribsheets blew away the second song in. They were picked up and brought back to me by a rather nice lady, so it wasn't all bad.
You've had plenty of good advice already, the only other one I can add is car/van parking. If you're playing a party in a residential street it's worth trying to negotiate a parking space or drop-off in advance.

[rOB]

all good advice, much better than I would have come up with.

We played a house party which turned into a garden party due to good weather recently.

Ran a vocal only PA, a bass amp and a guitar amp from an unwound extension lead from the house. Sounded ok to me.

[xgsjx]

[quote name='Slipperydick' post='1260056' date='Jun 7 2011, 06:31 PM']Run EVERYTHING FROM THE SAME TRIP, a plug top type like you use for a lawnmower will be fine.[/quote]
That depends on how much load you're using. I wouldn't run 3 amps & a PA from one mains run from the house.

[Bilbo]

Don't play in direct sunlight. Its a killer and you could get ill.

[ahpook]

[quote name='Bilbo' post='1260104' date='Jun 7 2011, 07:07 PM']Don't play in direct sunlight. Its a killer and you could get ill.[/quote]

[Slipperydick]

[quote name='xgsjx' post='1260091' date='Jun 7 2011, 06:55 PM']That depends on how much load you're using. I wouldn't run 3 amps & a PA from one mains run from the house.[/quote]
Why not ? I bet the total current drain with a small PA and no lights is under 5A.

But you could use multiple extension leads from a 4 way thats powered via the trip if your worried.

Does depend on the capacity and the length of the cable though.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Slipperydick

[xgsjx]

[quote name='Slipperydick' post='1260307' date='Jun 7 2011, 09:21 PM']Why not ? I bet the total current drain with a small PA and no lights is under 5A.

But you could use multiple extension leads from a 4 way thats powered via the trip if your worried.

Does depend on the capacity and the length of the cable though.[/quote]
It probably would be Ok, but adding things does cause a higher resistance & if it's someone who doesn't know much about electricity other than it makes things work, then it's best to run on the safe side.
They might not notice a long cable starting to overheat & becoming a hazard.

Just a quick note to the OP, don't plug multi sockets or 2/3 way adaptors into one another.

Edited June 7, 2011 by xgsjx

[Bloodaxe]

Apart from the above, check with the relevant Council's website to see if they've got any specific powers that could screw it up.

Here's Bromley Council's blurb on noisy parties:

[url="http://www.bromley.gov.uk/info/412/pollution_control-noise/457/noisy_parties"]http://www.bromley.gov.uk/info/412/polluti...7/noisy_parties[/url]

Compare & contrast with Lewisham's:

[url="http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/Environment/Pollution/NoisePollution/NoisyNeighbours/"]http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/Environment/Pol...oisyNeighbours/[/url]

Broadly the same but Lewisham make a point about seizing equipment.

Might be worth getting a written waiver from the party organiser ensuring that they're liable & not you.

P.

Edited June 7, 2011 by Bloodaxe

[flyfisher]

I recently played at a private outdoor party. The stage was built from sheets of 18mm ply on a frame of 4x2 timber. The 'roof' was built using scaffold towers and assorted scaffold poles/boards and was covered over with a large tarpaulin. Another scaffold pole was used as a lighting bar supporting six spotlights.

All the stage equipment, including the PA, was run from a single 13A socket in the house via a 40m extension cable with an RCCD plug.

The stage lighting was run from another 13A socket in the house via a 50m extension cable.

The sound desk was located under a small gazebo via a 30m snake and was powered from another 13A socket in the house via a 25m extension cable.

The 40m and 50m extension cables were longer than required but we made sure that all the cable was run off the reels to avoid overheating coiled-up cables. I lost count of the number of 6-way plug blocks on the stage but there were at least six of them. We had no electrical problems throughout the whole weekend.

We left all the equipment on stage overnight (except the guitars) and had no problem with damp/dew/condensation and everything worked perfectly when we hosted a very enjoyable Sunday morning jam session.

We've done a few outdoor gigs and have never had any problems, even when it has rained (obviously we've never let any equipment actually get wet!).

Sound-wise, the PA system seemed to cope fine (2x SRM450 Mackie heads plus a Mackie SWA1501 subwoofer) though we found it necessary to use a couple of mics above the drums to capture the cymbals, which we've never needed to do at indoor gigs. We also used a kick-drum mic.

These photos should give a better idea of the set-up:

[attachment=82033:Outdoors3.JPG] [attachment=82031:Outdoors1.JPG] [attachment=82032:Outdoors2.JPG]

[Graham56]

Thanks for all the pointers folks.

In particular I hadn't thought about using trips - that's a good idea.

That's a nice setup flyfisher. I don't think we'll get anything quite as elaborate as that. The venue is a large house in a wealthy area. Which is good because they have lots of space, a huge garden and lots of parking outside. But bad because if the neighbours get really pee'd off they have the clout to get things done!

Our guitarist uses a radio unit and goes walkabout in the audience on some songs. I fear he's going to try and find out just what kind of range it has.

Thanks for the council links Bloodaxe. We're actually in Bromley so I should have found that page myself! It sounds reasonable enough - they'll negotiate first before they get heavy.

Papers and crib sheets blowing away? That'd be a laugh - it would completely silence our singers...

And Bilbo - I'm a Scot so I don't really 'do' sunlight. Or happy songs. It's not natural.

Cheers

Graham

[casapete]

Big +1 for uncoiling all the mains extension cables before using. Also trace the path of the extensions making sure they run
okay - we once found the supply going through a stream!
Soundwise some marquees seem to deaden the sound onstage, yet from the audience (and often outside too!) it's okay.
(Get a mate to advise you on this?) Also with no stage watch out for drunken revellers putting drinks on your gear / dancing
with drinks / knocking speaker stands / grabbing the mic etc etc.

Regarding crib sheets/dots blowing away, I keep a few clothes pegs (wooden spring type) in my gig bag - work fine!

Despite all this though, it's great playing at outside do's, and they can lead to more of the same if you do a good job.

[Graham56]

Well we played the gig last Saturday and it went really well.

The marquee was very long and split into two parts – a sitting/standing/talking drinking bit and a dance floor with the band. There were two heavy duty power leads running from the house to the marquee. One to a distribution board for the lights, disco lights, mirrorball etc. Another to the back for us and for a small PA used for recorded music when we were not playing.
We set up and all looked good. Switched on the amps and PA. Plugged in our lights. As the second light unit went on – phutt... all the power in the marquee went off.
I ran around checking circuit breakers until we realised that it wasn’t just the marquee - we had tripped the main circuit-breaker in the house. There was a chef hired to provide the food and he was also running around, panicking about his ovens and microwave.
We reset, got everything running and decided to go without lights. Just about ready for the downbeat when... yep, down went at the house mains again.
The houseowner did admit it was a very sensitive trip.
The chef was by this time at 60,000 feet and climbing...
We tried a reset but it tripped again before I’d even made it back to the stage area.
The chef by this time hated our very existence and wanted to kill us...
This time the houseowner couldn’t get the trip to reset. Luckily the next door neighbour was at the party. And luckily he had external sockets on his house wall. So we draped a power line over the fence which was used to supply the band and the stage area. We were OK to go now.
The chef still had no house power and was sharpening a very large knife...

So we played. The first set was fairly laid back and we had some dancing, although most people stood at the far end, talking and drinking. The chef got his power back and began to calm down.
In the second set we started with an impromptu version of happy birthday just so we could drag everyone into the dancing area to sing. Then we immediately kicked into Lady Marmalade, a song that we find guarantees dancing.
We kept it up for the next 90mins or so, and had a good proportion of folks dancing all the way through. We were much more disciplined than normal between songs – finish one, 15 seconds to sort yourself out then “A wun, chew, three four...” into the next one.
We also changed the set on the fly to keep things moving, but this time with no discussion or argument. Somebody, usually the singer, would call the next song then off we’d go.
And it all went really well. Sounded great – no reverb or boominess from floor or walls. And not too loud – no complaints from neighbours. The host and his wife loved us. Lots of people came up to us, said how good we were and took fliers away with them.

Even the chef had mellowed by the end...

So thanks for all the tips. A much better night than the usual two drunk blokes and a dog in a dodgy Saff Lunnon drinking hols.

Cheers
Graham