AzNjt, why are you confused by the post??
I've done many shows in my lifetime.. and i got to share that most screw-ups in live sound from the band is due to bad planning from the organizers or the band themselves..
Many event organizers like to put up many different items in their shows, they think their event will be more attractive that way.. so they try to squeeze everything into that short allocated time slot they have in the venue, without any consideration of preparation/setup time. Especially, the most common case, not giving any/too little soundcheck time to the band. Then when things don't work out well, they start to blame either the band or the sound company for the problems..
Many bands have little knowledge that soundcheck is important for their performance, they are only bothered about their own performance, and just dumps everything on the sound engineer, in too little(short time), thinking all they need to do is play (like plug and play). And when the show don't turn out well due to feedbacks and bad sound, they start blaming the sound engineer..
These people have to be educated that soundcheck/setup time needs to be alloted for the sound company and the band. Bands should know that before they start their show, the sound engineer needs to tune/tweak each band player's instrument to have a good sound, including the whole overall band sound.
The more time allowed for soundcheck, the better the band sounds when they start their performance. And a good live sound makes the band sound good, giving themselves a better performance, as well as the audience liking them more. And with that, the event organizers would have a good show in their hands.
If you are a band and have 15 songs you intend to perform, but too little soundcheck time, it's better you reduce the number of songs to give yourself more soundcheck time. Sounding good for 10 songs is better than sounding bad for 15 songs.
If you an an event organizer that plans to have 15 different items on your show, it's better to reduce the number of items to give your bands more soundcheck time or whatever other acts more preparation time. Having less items in the show, but each item being well done is more appealing than chunking in too many items and each item badly done.
Especially when the show starts turning bad, resulting in everyone 'pointing their fingers' at each other, causing bad working relationships for any future shows to come..
I've seen many bands that just comes up on stage during soundcheck and start taking their soundcheck time as a rehearsal... remember, soundcheck is not your rehearsal time, it's the time for you to get your instruments sounding good by working alongside with the sound engineer to tweak a good sound and explaining what you need to hear on the monitors for your show. Give the sound engineer time to tweak each player's sound correctly, one by one, not the whole band playing together on the spot.
I've seen event organizers whom gets frantic the moment the audience are around, cutting the band's soundcheck time and expecting the band to perform, as long as they are on stage, so that the audience do not get bored.
If you as an event organizer is worried about that, bloc the day before for the band to soundcheck and sound company to setup their gear, so there won't be audience around. If not, just inform the audience that the band is doing their soundcheck.
At least 30 mins minimum of soundcheck need to allocated for each band performing for any show, though normally, it should be an hour.
If any event organizer/band plans to skip all these necessary details, then please don't expect their show to turn out well..
