Maximum capacity of soundset in party tents

[Roel Elzinga]

Hello sound enthusiasts!

As a 4-man live cover band (keyboards, electric guitar, amplified acoustic drums and vocals), we recently purchased a new sound set. This concerns 4x sub QSC KS212c, 2x QSC KW122 and an A&H SQ5.

In the months of may to september, village festivals take place every week in party tents here in the north of the Netherlands. These can be party tents made of fabric or aluminum with dimensions of, for example, 30 by 10 meters. The sound volume must be such that people can dance and party to it.

When booking our band, the question is often asked: is our sound set sufficient for this party or should we rent additional equipment?

The music store indicated that this set is more than sufficient in a party tent for 300 to 350 people. A sound rental company indicated 'up to a maximum of 200 to 250 people'. If I submit the question to QSC, I will probably get a different number...

Who has experience with this same set and can tell me from experience what this QSC set can reasonably handle?

Thank you in advance for your response!

Yours sincerely,

Roel

 

[Jeff Babcock]

Hi,
There is no exact answer to your question. As with many audio questions like this, the answer is: It Depends.

It depends in this case on how loud you intend to be, the style of music you play, and the type of overall mix you are going for (balanced, bass heavy, etc).

I personally would want a bigger system for a large tent. You mentioned 30x10m which is about 100x30 ft. When I have done shows in tents that large I am typically bringing 4 double 18' subwoofers and running 2 3-way tops per side (such as KF650) or some compact line array cabs.

However, your system will get pretty loud, so if you don't need it to sound like a rock concert, then your system is probably fine as is. I would suggest the best option is to work with what you have for a bunch of shows. This will give you a better understanding of your system's limitations to then decide if any changes are needed.

Best wishes.

 

[Roel Elzinga]

Thanks Jeff Babcock for your quick response.

I am aware that there is no single answer to my question. But based on the information I mentioned, I hope to at least gain some more certainty about the surface area of a party tent/the number of party goers that we can reasonably play with our set.

As indicated, it is a cover band. We play a repertoire of party music and guitar music, but 'purely nature' without the enormous pounding low end that you hear a lot in music nowadays.
Loudness, as mentioned earlier, is such that both the people at the front of the stage and further down in the party tent get into the party atmosphere and sing along and dance,

Our soundset is more than sufficient for our gigs in the catering industry and village halls. However, the party tents usually have (much) more visitors. And we would like an indication of what we can reasonably assume. We feel that the subs will be sufficient for our purposes in party tents, but we doubt whether the KW122 is sufficient. This may be too little compared to the subs.

Any further additions or tips are very welcome. Thank you again Jeff Babcock!

Greetings,

Roelof

 

[Andy King]

A tent that size will probably hold 450-500 people. I think you will need to double your PA size for that area and also get the tops quite high to reach the back. Jeff's suggestion of 4x double 18s and 2 large mid/tops a side sounds more reasonable to me. Especcially if the crowd get noisy.

 

[Art Welter]

Loudness, as mentioned earlier, is such that both the people at the front of the stage and further down in the party tent get into the party atmosphere and sing along and dance,

Roelof,

If your QSC KW122 are raised above head level, they are capable of over 90dB SPL at 30 meters.
Your four dual 12 subs can get louder than that.
That's loud enough for a party atmosphere, and is around the permissible NIOSH SPL limit of 90 dB for 151 minutes.
Halfway back in the tent, SPL will be around 6dB louder, at 96dBA (slow) the NIOSH SPL limit drops to 38 minutes.
Near the speakers, SPL could be over 110dB, the NIOSH SPL limit drops to just one minute.
The World Health Organization noise guidelines for the European Region are similar.

Art

 

[Roel Elzinga]

A tent that size will probably hold 450-500 people. I think you will need to double your PA size for that area and also get the tops quite high to reach the back. Jeff's suggestion of 4x double 18s and 2 large mid/tops a side sounds more reasonable to me. Especcially if the crowd get noisy.

Thanks Andy King for your response.

I assume that 300 to 350 people will be approximately the maximum number of people at our gigs. I expect that the maximum size of the tents in which we will perform with our own soundset will be the aforementioned 30 meters by 10 meters.

So I am actually looking for some kind of confirmation, based on experience or the estimation of people with sound knowledge, that our sound set is reasonably sufficient for this.

If someone wants to book us for such a party with such numbers of people, I would like to be able to say with (reasonable) certainty whether we will come with this sound set, or whether additional rental will have to be made, which will increase costs for the organizer.

Thanks again Andy!

 

[Roel Elzinga]

Roelof,

If your QSC KW122 are raised above head level, they are capable of over 90dB SPL at 30 meters.
Your four dual 12 subs can get louder than that.
That's loud enough for a party atmosphere, and is around the permissible NIOSH SPL limit of 90 dB for 151 minutes.
Halfway back in the tent, SPL will be around 6dB louder, at 96dBA (slow) the NIOSH SPL limit drops to 38 minutes.
Near the speakers, SPL could be over 110dB, the NIOSH SPL limit drops to just one minute.
The World Health Organization noise guidelines for the European Region are similar.

Art

Thank you Art Welter for your response!

If I summarize correctly, you estimate that our sound set is sufficient for the purpose I described earlier, sufficient sound for a party atmosphere and sing along and dance. We don't need a high volume all the way to the back of the tent, there are also people who just want to talk to each other. But a firm volume, say, three-quarters of the way through the tent is actually desirable.

I still have the feeling that the ratio between the 4 subs and the 2 tops is not yet optimal. Adding two KW122 might solve this sufficiently?

Thanks again Art.

Greetings,

Roel