running a private bush doof

Hey folks

at some point, once we have the necessary freedoms back, I'd love to chuck a bush doof. It'd just be for mates and mates of mates, probably limit it to about 30 peeps for space and complexity reasons, but I want to go all out with the sound system and maybe even do some screens for visuals.

I realise that it isn't a simple undertaking, and I've never had any experience whatsoever with concert level equipment of any kind, hence my posting here. I figure at least one of you lot does this for a living and can give me the run down? I'd love to know what sort of gear I should look at hiring, where I would go to hire it, and what sort of specialist knowledge and skills I'd need to get everything together. Here's the gear I think I'm after:

• Speakers and relevant amps
• Mixing deck and so on
• gantries to hang shit? or just pile it up on the ground, idk
• generator (i've got a massive 3 phase available already)
• lighting - lasers and whatnot?
• smoke maybe?
• screens - LED or projector? as big as possible I guess
• the gear to drive the screens, and how tf do they work, do I need video files to play or something else?
• what else do I need to look at?

It's gonna be psytrance and dub and such

I've tested the location for sound reflections and it's mad, it's a really wide river bank on the corner of a river, with tall not-quite cliffs either side, but they angle back about 45 degrees so sound doesn't bounce back at you. Fired a few .303 rounds at it and there's only the vaguest echo from a rocky outcrop down the river

Got an inside man at Coates so I have access to portaloos, porta-drinking-fountains, marquees, and a bunch of other cool stuff

Spare me the lectures on why I shouldn't do it because it's gonna be hard work, eh? If you've sussed some of my projects you'll see I don't do things by halves

 

Fuck lectures on why you shouldn't do it, how do I go about getting an invite??

Sorry I have nothing else to contribute other than thinking that for a 30 people capacity you're probably not gonna need a massive PA unless you're spreading out over a big physical area. As far as decks and mixing etc goes, do your or your mates DJ? I'd usually rely on whoever is spinning to have that side of the setup at least.

 

It's going to be a lot of work doing it yourself, especially with covid issues effecting business. There are companies that do all this stuff for you. That's what I'd be doing.

 

you take that kinda negativity outta here, you hear me?

re: DJ, the plan was to mix together a set myself prior and just hit play at the event. Just use the gear to play the thing. Dunno if that's a horrible idea or what. but no I don't know any DJs personally

 

could be the go, do you know anything about that? any company names you could recommend? googled it myself but a vague ad telling me to enquire doesn't tell me whether what I want is a $10k or $100k undertaking

 

Yeah sorry mate I wish I could, I've never organised it myself but I know people at work who have. If I manage to come across any names and ones that might be in Melb I'll let you know. They pretty much organise absolutely everything for you so it takes the whole project management thing off the table.

 

Firstly you have consider your budget, and how you intend to recover the cash outlay, or are you a resent Lotto winner. Costs can run away, all to easerly. Also a big consideration is permits. OK you have said it will be a private bash. Unfortunately bureaucracy will raise it's ugly head, Always does always will. Noise control, parking, security etc.
Also if you intend to have taped or CD music, Copyright could be a problem, again yet another permit

Your big problem will be controlling the free loaders 5 people invited quickly turns into 50 or 500

While Coates Hire will be able to meet all your requirements, Get a quote with regard to costs , Both supply, set-up and shut down before you sign the go-a-head. There's a young chap who lives close to me who is a Rigger on big outdoor music events. His minimum wage fees start at a grand a day.

By the sound of your list of requirements, it sounds like a mini "Woodstock" You might be better of with a few mates, a slab or three, a Boon Box, and a few candles.

Anyway good luck to you, I hope it all works out.

 

Hey mate I've been involved in the outdoor party scene for many years, I can send you the contacts for a few folk who hire audio gear if you like.

Basically you'll need speakers, sub(s), amps and a 4 channel mixer- Pioneer 4 channel ones are a de facto standard with balanced XLR output. A serious mixing desk is not required. Then hook up whatever input devices you want such as decks, dj controllers, pc, ipad whatever. As for what you get, this depends on your budget and the proximity of the location to other people- big subs can be heard a long way away!
The dj booth/audio area should be protected by a marquee or similar so all the gear doesn't get rained on. Speakers on stands, sub boxes on pallets, amps are usually in rackmount boxes, a simple folding table for the mixer and dj gear.

You need appropriate power leads and balanced speaker leads usually XLR/XLR or XLR/Centrix, plus whatever interconnects needed to get from input devices to mixer, usually rca/rca and 1/4"/rca.

A simple audio setup like the above can be set up by yourself and some helpers pretty easily, just takes time.

For running visuals, the input devices would go in that area too. There's specialised VJ software and controllers, or you can run any kind of visualisation from anything with hdmi output- pcs, ipads, whatever. Possibilities are endless. A simple solution is getting a piece of canvas say 2m x 3m and rear projecting onto it with a home still projector (see pic below). 'Hard' screens are expensive and cumbersome.

Decent projectors will cost a bit, and they chew lots of juice. Smaller home style units don't really have the lumens to illuminate a large area. To get nice colour and detail you need proper screens to project onto, which is a whole exercise in itself.

For lighting, lasers are wonderful of course and accentuated by smoke machines. Smaller lasers and smoke machines are inexpensive to hire. Par cans throw lots of light and are great for adding big splashes of colour to the enviroment, highlighting trees and surrounding foliage is a nice use.

You might want a structure for shade and protection and for people to hang out in, with chairs or bean bags, ground coverings like cheap rugs work well for this, folding table for drinks prep area. Eskies and ice, cooking equipment, the usual .

You haven't said where the proposed location is but just some advice if it's not private land- rangers and police patrol national parks and will possibly shut you down if you're making a lot of noise. State forest areas you can get away with a lot, provided you're respectful and don't trash the place.

Here's our crew's setup below- one of our mates collects nice av gear which we all benefit from He, myself and a couple of others dj. The screens are 7m x 3m and are rear projected from commercial grade water cooled projectors that weigh a ton and need a generator of their own! You need a 5T truck once you get to this stage.

By the way, if you're open to the idea I would love to come along and dj some tunes for you- I spin psy/prog psy, tech, plus some dnb, dub and other broken beats.



Another crew built this simple canvas tent backlit with a projector:

 

All that gear for 30 peps lmfao, just get some shrooms and molly. Use to do a few back yarders 20 years ago and had a freind who did lighting which worked out well though ya talking a min of 300 peps, 30 peps is just a waste but your choice. Like i said i rented my audio from one guy and lighting next to free from another, i guess buy swap and sell on fb maybe a source for renting gear on the cheap these days. If your doing this on a reg well getting some gear yourself would be the go to save renting gear all the time. Sorry dude but 30 peps for a setup like your talking about wtf

 

If it's only 30-50 people go to your local audio hire place, get 2-4 powered speakers, one or two 18" subs and get them all self powered (amps in built)
Get a dj setup with 2x cdjs, 1 mixer and you can either run straight out of this to the speakers or a small desk mixer (a small behringer thing with xlr out will suffice)
Most hire places do small party light hire setups and just a few moving heads and really do whatever you want to make it fancy. Just hang some off a T-bar tripod stand for simples.
For visuals that's where effort/money comes down to you, to be cheap if you can find a place to a goalpost truss setup you could cover the gap with a sheet and shoot a projector at it from behind with a laptop and whatever movie files you want. All this could be done for under $500 and will be a fun shindig, anything beyond this would proabably be overkill for such a small get together but if budget isn't an issue go fkn crazy.

A small honda generator (those great little red ones, eu500 or whatever they are) have been enough for me to run decks, mixer and 2x speakers on and had no problem. Subs and smoke machines are going to hurt when it comes to power draw

 

filthy casuals

 

I think it might've been this line that had them thinking 'overkill'

 

an pro-audio rental shop will have the expertise on hand to tell you what you need to meet your requirements.

once a year, I've got an event that takes over an exhibition oval, the lot is done, from a single amp, and 12 passive (so you only need to run the speaker cables to them, no power needed for each speaker, makes it piss easy) speakers positioned around the outer fence line. pro-audio gear is designed to fill large areas with sound much more so than home audio gear is, so you can get away with a lot less than you may think.

the shop we rent the gear from, supplies, mixer, amp, and wireless mics all mounted in a small road case. one power connection in, and then plug in whatever audio source you want. mixer handles various inputs and mic channels. easy as.

as for visual, don't over think it, get a porjector/screen (tent, sheet, whatever), and a laptop to run some videos from. job done.

30 people is a tiny event for any of these places.

 

This sounds like a swat party along Merri Creek in Clifton Hill?

-nav.