Speakers facing the band… why? most of the people will be on the dancefloor!!
This was a question that a very nice lady asked me on the phone on Monday when she called in to hire some “Speakers and Party stuff” for her son 18th birthday.
“So” she told, “we will have a band and we want some speakers so everyone can hear the band”
“Great” I told her, “We can definitely help you with that”
Everything went quite smooth throughout the process when we talked about FOH speakers, mixing console, microphones, stands, staging and some lighting.
So the nice lady on the phone seemed quite happy and she gave me the phone number of the band manager to make sure that we had everything they needed.
A quick call to the band manager, we agreed on speakers, digital mixing console, microphones set up, foldback positions and everything else we needed for the gig…. All great!!!
After few minutes I finish the quote and email it to the nice lady email address with a note saying: “Please let me know if you would like to go ahead with the booking and if you have any questions”
Well, a few hours later I get a phone call from the nice lady which at this stage seemed a little annoyed.
Me. “Hi how are you, what’s wrong, did I miss something?”
Nice but annoyed lady: “No you didn’t miss anything, actually you added another 4 speakers that we don’t need. No one is going to be on the stage to listen to the band, most people will be on the dancefloor, so why would you charge me for an extra 4 speakers -pause- stage monitors?”
I went on to explain that the Stage Monitor speakers (foldback as we also call them) are for the band so they can hear themselves and the whole band. Without the stage monitors, the performer/musician could probably only hear the instrument that is closer to him/her.
A quick reply from the nice lady was: “well the band knows what they are playing, they don’t need to hear themselves”
It took a while and quite a bit of discounting to convince the (now back to nice) lady that after all she needed to book the stage monitors.
My view on the moral of the story:
If you want to save some money on your event, buy fewer canapes food trays, don’t spend the extra money on the balloons (which by the way are bad for marine life), go cheap on the table setting but make sure you look after the musicians and performers and they will look after you.
I can’t remember last time I come back from a party and mentioned to anyone…. Ahhh the table setting wasn’t very good!.. But I do remember last time I came back from a party and told my wife…. The sound was bad!!!
Here is a quick link to a very good explanation of why you need Foldback speakers for your next event or stage set up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_monitor_system
Example of a Stage monitor speaker / Foldback speaker RCF NX12-SMA Powered Foldback Speaker (Thank you RCF for the photo)
You can find foldback speakers, mixing consoles, Microphone, staging equipment, rigging equipment and more on our website
and also you can contact us for more information about Staging, foldback monitor speakers and any Audio-visual requirements you may have.
Example of foldback set up and front fill..