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[Peter Kowalczyk]

Hey Folks,

As Festival Season ramps up (I'm three-deep already), I wondered what sort of wisdom you all could share regarding  audio engineering in the trenches of the modern music festival.

I found this thread from over a decade ago, and many concepts still apply (labelling, subsnakes, festival patch layout, Load in / Out routing, etc.)
https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,117396.40.html

I'll start....

My approach recently has been to keep my physical patch as static as possible,  (e.g. upstage subsnake is ALWAYS inputs 1:16, DSR is 17:24, DSL is 25:32) and soft-patch things from where they land on stage to their defined channel.  This worked pretty well last weekend, but we were lucky with very typical configurations of drums, bass, electric and acoustic guitars, and vocals, and nothing more exotic than an occasional keyboard or horn. 

To facilitate this process, I printed out Patch Sheets with the festival patch written out, and a space for the band-specific 'Input' to be written.  A bank of open channels were available to write-in novel inputs.  My monitor guy and I would discuss and write out the next bands patch, and then, I was able to program the input list and input routing offline and push it to the console during changeovers, with channel safes as needed for, say, the MC channel, FX, my master matrix routing, etc...

I spiked each of my three subsnakes in a different color, and labelled both the female stagebox inputs and male fan-out outputs with the House Input number (e.g. 25-32), in that color.  Then, used that color to label the female ends of the 'standard patch' lines on stage (e.g. 11 - Bass DI, or 25 - Vox 1).

What strategies have you found to stay organized and keep your sanity during long and hectic days? 
How do you deal with IEM racks?  Guest Engineers & Show Files?  SPL Threshold shift?  Shitty coffee and Gig Butt? 

Thanks!

[Ike Zimbel]

Hey Folks,

As Festival Season ramps up (I'm three-deep already), I wondered what sort of wisdom you all could share regarding  audio engineering in the trenches of the modern music festival.

I found this thread from over a decade ago, and many concepts still apply (labelling, subsnakes, festival patch layout, Load in / Out routing, etc.)
https://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,117396.40.html

I'll start....

My approach recently has been to keep my physical patch as static as possible,  (e.g. upstage subsnake is ALWAYS inputs 1:16, DSR is 17:24, DSL is 25:32) and soft-patch things from where they land on stage to their defined channel.  This worked pretty well last weekend, but we were lucky with very typical configurations of drums, bass, electric and acoustic guitars, and vocals, and nothing more exotic than an occasional keyboard or horn. 

To facilitate this process, I printed out Patch Sheets with the festival patch written out, and a space for the band-specific 'Input' to be written.  A bank of open channels were available to write-in novel inputs.  My monitor guy and I would discuss and write out the next bands patch, and then, I was able to program the input list and input routing offline and push it to the console during changeovers, with channel safes as needed for, say, the MC channel, FX, my master matrix routing, etc...

I spiked each of my three subsnakes in a different color, and labelled both the female stagebox inputs and male fan-out outputs with the House Input number (e.g. 25-32), in that color.  Then, used that color to label the female ends of the 'standard patch' lines on stage (e.g. 11 - Bass DI, or 25 - Vox 1).

What strategies have you found to stay organized and keep your sanity during long and hectic days? 
How do you deal with IEM racks?  Guest Engineers & Show Files?  SPL Threshold shift?  Shitty coffee and Gig Butt? 

Thanks!

To address your last question first, topical application of Polysporin, before the plague sets in (helps after, too ).
       It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things already but just to reinforce some of your methods, https://www.prosoundweb.com/foolproof-festival-patch/ is a piece I wrote on the topic a few years back. It's been a while, but back in the Zeros, I was mixing a side stage at local festival for about 5-6 years. We routinely had our changeovers done inside of 10 minutes, and never missed a patch using this system. This was with a great stage manager and monitor engineer. The best part was, a few seconds into the first song, watching the artist's faces as they recalculated from "the first song will be a throwaway/sound-check" to "Oh!, we're dialed in, let's do a concert!".
          WRT your question about threshold shift, after a few years I started mixing on my in-ears and just leaving them in all day (after popping them out a few times, early in the day to verify that the PA was doing what I wanted it to). Initially, this was as much because of the applause being really loud (and close) but after a while the fact that the audience never stopped talking all day and night also became a factor. This was in a large tent (40' x 100' maybe...?). It got so bad that the yammering was a solid 85dB all day long.

[Brian Jojade]

The key is keeping things clean and organized.  Having power taps available on the stage in multiple places makes life much easier, as you won't have to re-string that between bands.  I like to lay 2 rows of power, one across the front, one in front of the drum riser, with quads every 5 or 10 feet.  This covers most layouts with ease.

Whenever possible, I much prefer 1:1 patching vs using soft patching, even if this means occasionally running a longer cable on stage.  For this reason, I typically don't do a left and right stage patch, or if I do, I tend to fill the first one whenever possible.

For monitors, we have magnetic business cards that we can slap to the face of the monitor that is color coded and has the mix number on it.  Makes it MUCH easier to keep track of which monitor mix the user is looking at.  The speakons for each mix are manually labeled for that mix and coiled off to the side of the stage until needed.

Label your cables as well.  Each of my speakon, power and XLR cables are numbered at each end, color coded for length.  When you need to trace something back, it's much easier to go to the end and look at the number vs trying to physically trace a cable the entire way.

Yeah, with proper planning, a changeover between bands shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, as long as you have cooperation from both bands.  It takes coordination to make sure everyone is on the same page.  If you can't get a band to move their stuff out of the way, or the 2nd band isn't in position ready to take the stage, delays are inevitable.

[Matthew Knischewsky]

How do you deal with IEM racks?  Guest Engineers & Show Files? 

Thanks!

Festival patch is all well and good when most of the performers are using house consoles/house techs using festival show files. It breaks down is when artists have engineers with show files, carrying IEM rigs etc. At a certain point it makes sense to do a 1:1 patch that matches up with the artist input list rather than try to cross patch digitally to make the festival patch work. It's much simpler when someone is expecting a channel to come up somewhere that it is just where it should be. If everything is well labelled and organized it should be quick to change - The Patch Is Not Sacred.

Another shift that's happened in the last decade is if you have bands/engineers coming in with their own show files it's good practice to have your MC mics, background music, emergency announcements on their own dedicated, small "traffic console" that has it's own input path to the PA. Most BEs are grateful to not have to deal with these inputs on a festival date.

Matt

[Miguel Dahl]

From when I was doing festivals, we kept one rule, that was to never touch the main input patch, unless in it was a very special situation. Everything went through the boxes out on the stage. And we never did softpatching. I'd rather have me, or someone, run a 30ft XLR to the correct box, than a short XLR directly into the main patch.

If a show file from BE was being used, that show file was sent to us before the festival, and the one making the patch-spreadsheet would take that into account.

With soft patching you introduce a second layer of patching. If everything is 1:1 you only need to look one place (the box, which should be labeled with input #, and if you have swappable boxes which are pre-rigged-cabled/prepped before the C/O, then input channel # and instrument) if something is not showing up, or showing up on the wrong strip.

[lindsay Dean]

And of course, keep a close Eye on your microphones and direct boxes during change over.
Those things have a weird habit of following the exiting act off the stage sometimes.

[Erik Jerde]

It's going to depend on what your lineup is like.  Big names with show files, tour staff, etc are going to be different than a stage where your crew is running the whole thing.

If I'm working a stage where there is little or no guest engineers then I like to set it up with a drum patch that will accommodate most sets (metal festivals usually need more lines).  Drop a bass line each side of stage, 2 electric lines each side, 1 acoustic line each side, and 2 stereo keys sets each side.  4 mics across the front, 2 across the back, 1 at drums.  Label it all, label each end of the cables and label the inputs on the sub snakes.  Usually there's enough unused lines that when you get an odd setup you can easily just patch it in.

90+ percent of the time in my experience it works great because you've got the lines you need where you need them and it's just a matter of throwing the band up and putting the mics in the right place.  If you have time between sets you can coil cables back up and make things neat.  When working monitors I'd get the band up and then get on comms to FOH and let them know the details of the patch (Bass SR, acoustic SL, electric SL1, mando on SR acoustic line, vox C, SR, USL).  You get the idea.

You usually end up with some unused channels floating around so it's not as tight a setup as if it was a single band but that's the price you pay for keeping things smooth.  It's also nice that through the day(s) things stay put.  Keeps the mental aspect of "where's the acoustic at this time?" to a minimum.  You can also setup a basic preset that you just recall at the start of each band and work from there as opposed to starting from scratch.  Makes monitors a lot easier since you're not starting from scratch.  Bring the gain up and everybody has some of whatever already, just minor tweaking from there.

[Riley Casey]

As always the bottom bottom line is that just about any plan will work as long as it's real planning with complete understanding and agreement among all the relevant participants. The moment someone has their own "better idea" it all falls apart for everyone involved.

... We routinely had our changeovers done inside of 10 minutes, and never missed a patch using this system. This was with a great stage manager and monitor engineer....

[Steve Ferreira]

I'm always the one planning and running the festivals that I work on. I have had days with 2 bands one right after the other and we have no down time. Keep in mind we have sound checks before hand and all monitor levels are also taken care of. I do a 1:1 patch and give my helper a copy of the patch list. We also tape a copy of the patch on the stage rack. Patch list has all I/O. I will then create fader layers or DCAs for each band on the console. Keep in mind this is all pre-planned and not something we do on-site. Day of becomes just small things to worry about like Ipads etc...

[Brian Adams]

For festivals, I like to have several stage snakes in parallel. Just one box on the drum riser, 1-10 for drums, and 2 bass channels, with a cable run to each side of the riser for each. Then another set of 3 boxes with 13-14 for electric guitars, 15-16 for acoustics, 17-18 for keys, and 19-24 for vocals, with all 3 stageboxes in parallel. One SR and SL of the drum riser, and one down center, all labeled the same. It makes it super easy to patch whatever into the snake that's closest, and it keeps cable from being run everywhere across the stage. Surprisingly, or maybe not, I never had a problem with patching 2 things into the same channel. It just works. At least for me.

[ProSoundWeb Community]