When a big name plays at a huge venue, how much equipment can fail
without stopping the show? I know the guitarist would just get
handed a new guitar and the song likely wouldn't stop, but say one of
the important keyboards conked out. Would they have another
one backstage programmed and ready? If one of the main system amps went out, would there
be another one ready to take its place? At least some time ago
there would be a big console in the audience area. Say the power
supply for that blew. It seems like they sort of have to have
two of everything. What are some great
stories about big venue equipment failure?

On the subject of the big console in the audience, do they still
do that, or would someone just sit there with a laptop and do the
same thing?

In article <t6grce$13b5$1@gioia.aioe.org>, Tobiah <toby@tobiah.org> wrote:
>be another one ready to take its place? At least some time ago
>there would be a big console in the audience area. Say the power
>supply for that blew. It seems like they sort of have to have
>two of everything. What are some great
>stories about big venue equipment failure?

Live sound consoles usually have redundant power supplies. Even the low
end Midas consoles have an internal supply and an optional rackmount supply,
and anyone who cares about reliability brings the rackmount supply.

The nature of analogue consoles is that you get some redundancy. If one
channel strip fails, you use another one or you pull it out. On some
consoles you run dual master sections; on others you can swap output modules
around so if you lose a main send you pull out an aux send module and put
it in place.

I did once work an event where the console power supply died, and they had
a spare on the inventory but didn't know where it was, so we patched the
record truck outputs into the mains and mixed the rest of the concert from
the truck with no stage monitors.

>On the subject of the big console in the audience, do they still
>do that, or would someone just sit there with a laptop and do the
>same thing?

These days they are apt to be digital, with cat5 run from FOB to the stage
box. This gives less inherent redundancy, so it's not unusual for big
events to have a backup console and backup stage box. Since they are so
much smaller and lighter the cost of carrying around spares is much reduced.
But there are still a few riders out there demanding Cadac and Midas analogue
consoles.
--scott
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--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Tobiah" wrote in message news:t6grce$13b5$1@gioia.aioe.org...

When a big name plays at a huge venue, how much equipment can fail
without stopping the show? I know the guitarist would just get
handed a new guitar and the song likely wouldn't stop, but say one of
the important keyboards conked out. Would they have another
one backstage programmed and ready?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

With keyboards it would depend. Back in the day we would have duplicate
back-ups. I toured with 7 keyboards so I always had it covered.
But I think it depends on the budget/fame of the artist.

Short story regarding "failures".
At a show in the early 80s our guitarist decided to not show up for a gig at
a very large local outdoor venue. I had to cover all his parts on the guitar
heavy songs, as well as my own keyboard parts as well as lead vocals.
On one particular rocker there were no keys, so I got out front and belted
it out while playing guitar.....until the guitar strap broke about 1/4 ways
into the song.
I finished the tune in it's entirety standing on one foot while pulling the
other knee up to hold the guitar and keep it from falling.
After the show a guy came up to me and said it was the best Ian Anderson
impersonation he's ever seen.

Poly

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Tobiah <toby@tobiah.org> asks:

> When a big name plays at a huge venue, how much equipment can fail
> without stopping the show? ...
>
> At least some time ago there would be a big console in the audience
> area. Say the power supply for that blew. It seems like they sort
> of have to have two of everything.

Generally speaking, once everything has been powered up, it will stay
up for the rest of the day. And evryone has spare power supplies.
I've only had one fail in the middle of a show, and oddly enough the
people in the Sony sound shop decided the rack was too heavy so they
took out the spare supply. Then because it was about 8PM we had to
find someone to go to the shop, then bring it to us. Fun, fun, fun..

Yes, the audience had to wait, but they were entertained as best
could be done (PA was still up) in the interim.

> What are some great stories about big venue equipment failure?

Long ago I recorded "An Evening With Chick Corea & Herbie Hancock."
This was done on a couple Ampex recorders (speaking of spares) but
the plan was to segue between them, due to the limited recording
time on each machine. So.. One of them didn't come up working...
It turned out that one of the secondary windings on its power
transformer had failed, so the recording was done with clip leads
from the good machine's transformer to the other machine's power
hardware. Heh.

As long as I'm talking about it, Chick's manager was giving us
a little heat about why Herb's piano sounded "better." But then,
right in the middle of the show the two got up and switched pianos,
and the sound of each followed them. They're both great players,
but they each have their own touch.....

Billy Y..
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