Gobo Studios · a DBA of Monterey Skates LLC · Monterey, CA · (831) 264-8797 · gobostudios.com

Sound and PA

A gym is a bad room. That is a solvable problem.

Hard floor, hard walls, a ceiling forty feet up and nothing in the room that absorbs anything. Sound bounces until it turns into mush, and the usual response is to turn it up, which makes it worse.

The fix is aiming and level, not more power. That is most of what we do before anyone arrives.

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The problem

Loud is not the same as clear.

A gym has parallel hard surfaces on every axis. Sound leaves the speaker, hits a wall, comes back, hits the opposite wall, and arrives at a listener several times over a couple of seconds. Music survives that reasonably well. Speech does not. That is why the principal’s announcement is a wall of noise in a room where the music sounded fine.

The things that actually help are boring:

Aim at people, not at walls. Sound that hits a crowd is absorbed by the crowd. Sound that hits a bare wall comes back at you. Boxes go up on poles and get angled down into where the people are.
More sources at lower level beats one source at high level. Two well-placed tops covering a floor are clearer than one box turned up to reach the back.
Subwoofers on the floor, near the DJ position. Low frequency needs the floor to couple to, and keeping it near the source keeps the timing right.
Set the level so people can talk. A working target is that two people ten feet apart at the edge of the floor can still hear each other. On the floor it should be loud. At the tables it should be a party, not an evacuation.
Ring out the mic before the room fills. Feedback frequencies get found and pulled in an empty room, not discovered live in front of four hundred people.

Coverage

Four rooms we get asked for most.

Every one of these is a different setup. The count comes from the room and the head count, not from a package.

Gym

The hardest one. Tops go up high on poles and get angled down at the floor rather than fired flat across it. If the dance floor is centre-court and people are on both ends, it is a two-position setup, not one stack in a corner. Announcements get their own attention because speech is what this room destroys.

Cafeteria or multipurpose room

Low ceiling, close walls, and usually a much smaller crowd than the gym version of the same event. Less power, more care about placement. The common failure here is a system that is simply too big for the room and gets run at a level that makes conversation impossible.

Ballroom or banquet room

Carpet and drape absorb a lot, so these rooms are kind. The work here is coverage geometry: dinner tables at the far end need to hear a toast clearly while the dance floor at the near end is at party level. That is a two-zone problem.

Outdoor, quad, or tent

No walls means no reflections and no help. Sound just leaves. Power and distance become the constraint, and level has to be managed against whatever noise rules apply.

Microphones

Announcements are the part that has to work.

Music can be a little imperfect and nobody files a complaint. A microphone that cuts out during a principal’s speech is the thing people remember about the whole night.

So it is treated as the critical path. Wireless handhelds for announcements, with a spare sitting on the table already switched on and level-matched, so a swap takes three seconds and nobody watches somebody kneel down and dig through a case. A wired microphone stays patched in as the fallback that has no batteries and no radio path to fail.

At load-in we scan for open frequencies. School buildings are full of wireless: assistive listening, campus radios, the theatre department’s own gear. Picking clear channels before doors is a five-minute job that prevents the failure mode nobody can debug in front of a crowd.

The kit

What comes standard, and what to ask for.

The first three arrive whether you ask or not. The last three are a sentence in an email, and they are much easier to arrange two weeks out than on the day.

Handheld wireless

For announcements, plus a spare on standby, already switched on and level-matched.

A wired fallback

Wired handheld patched in as the path that has no batteries and no radio to lose.

Fresh batteries

New at every event, not “probably still good”.

A microphone stand

At the podium or the stage, if a speaker needs their hands free.

Lapel or headset

If a speaker walks or a host works the room. Ask in advance.

Extra handhelds

For a panel, an awards presentation, or duet-style karaoke.

Logistics

What we need from the building.

Send this table to whoever runs the facility. It is the fastest way to find the one problem that would otherwise surface at 4pm on the day.

Venue requirements for a Gobo Studios PA
We need	Why	Typical
Two dedicated 20-amp circuits	Audio on its own circuit. A lighting inrush should never be able to interrupt the PA.	Within 50 feet of the DJ position
Confirmation they are separate	Two outlets on the same breaker are one circuit, whatever the wall looks like	Ask facilities, not the room booking
A table, 6 to 8 feet	The DJ position, plus somewhere the spare microphone lives	Near power, with sightline to the floor
Load-in path	Cases roll. Stairs double the time.	A door a vehicle can reach
Load-in window	System up and rung out before doors	2 to 3 hours
Sound check window	Speech and music at show level in the empty room	45 to 60 minutes before doors
Quiet during check	Sound check with a setup crew talking over it is not a sound check	15 minutes of it

On generators and outdoor events

A generator has to be sized for the whole rig and placed far enough away that guests do not hear it. If your outdoor site has no power, say so in the first email. It changes the quote and it changes the load-in.

How loud

Give us the number and we will meter to it.

If your district, venue, or city has a sound limit, tell us what it is and where it is measured. We will meter to it and stay under it. That is a normal request and it is not a compromise on the show.

If nobody has given you a number, here is the standard we run to anyway. On the dance floor it should be unmistakably loud. Ten feet off the floor, two people should still be able to have a conversation. Adults sitting at the far tables should be able to talk without raising their voices. A room that hurts is a room that empties, and an empty room is a failed event regardless of what the meter says.

Your on-site contact can also ask for it down at any point in the night and get it, without a negotiation.

Before you book

The practical answers.

Can we plug our own laptop in for a slideshow or a video?: Yes. Tell us in advance what the output is, and bring the adapter that came with the machine. USB-C to HDMI is the one that goes missing most.
Can a band or a performer use your system?: Sometimes. It depends on what they need. Put us in touch with them a couple of weeks out and we will work it out directly, which is faster than either of us relaying through you.
Can you provide sound for a speech-only event with no music?: Yes. Ceremonies, assemblies, and award presentations are a smaller and cheaper setup than a dance.
Do you cover the room if the event moves outside?: Only if we planned for it. An outdoor position needs different placement and different power. Tell us the rain plan when you book.
What if the power goes out?: Everything comes back up when the power does. Nothing in the rig needs a rebuild.

Next step

Tell us the room and the head count.

Send the venue, the date, the hours, and roughly how many people. You get a written quote with the coverage that fits.

Or call. (831) 264-8797.

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