What is Production?
You may have noticed when you’re given a quote by us that we separate the band costs and the “Production” costs. First off, what is production?
Production is all of the sound gear (mics, speakers, etc.) that we need for you to hear us and for us to hear ourselves when we play. Because vocalists aren’t as loud as drummers or electric guitar amps, we mic everything and it balances the volumes of all of the instruments. Here’s a video that we made to show what the band sounds like without production:
We separate the costs as some venues that we play like The Commodore in Vancouver are music venues and have their own production and audio staff (Paul at the Commodore is a legend!) and we don’t need to provide production. Also, there are some corporate conferences that we play that also have contracted their own AV for the entire run of the conference and will provide production for us (more on this below). For most of the events we play however, we will provide production for ourselves.
FYI production is where a lot of event bands will skimp. They bring the least that they can get away with counting on the fact that you don’t know enough about the technical part of things to complain other than to say “we can’t hear the singer” or “my grandma/CEO thinks it’s too loud” and because some bands don’t even bring a sound tech, you won’t even know who to voice your concerns to.
Here’s some red flags to watch out for:
No tech: if the band doesn’t have a dedicated sound tech with them all night to control volumes, watch out. Having control of the volume of the band is paramount to a great event. Whether that means pumping it up to get the dance floor rocking, or the neighbours are threatening to call the cops and you need things quiet asap, or as mentioned having your grandparents or CEO be able to “have a conversation over all of that racket!!”, you’ll want a tech. Some bands attempt to “mix from the stage” and they have no idea what it sounds like from the audience’s perspective causing all sorts of problems. There are unique sound challenges that are presented by the shapes and sizes of the rooms that we play…..imagine your high school gymnasium versus a padded room. Sound can also bounce off of walls and stages and feed back into the microphones creating a loop and that’s where you get that high pitched squeal that’s now a trope you hear in a movie whenever someone begins talking on a microphone……”One two-one two-is this thing on??” Having an experienced sound tech is essential for eliminating these issues and having everyone clearly hear the band and speeches and our team are some of the best in the biz.
Grizzled tech: the only thing worse than no tech is the sound tech who was a roadie for BTO in 1979 and has his Judas Priest shirt and ponytail pulled through his cannabis leaf hat at your $100K+ dream rustic-style wedding. Our techs are always dressed appropriately for the event either in a suit or our Side One tech outfits (see Erin’s fashionable S1 golf shirt in the inset).
Inadequate gear: If you see only two speakers on stands only on either side of the band, that’s a possible red flag. Because sound equipment is pretty expensive and big, most event bands can’t afford decent/proper gear or have the space in their car to fit the things that they actually need to make a party sound good. They’ll have two poor quality speakers (Yorkville, Mackie, etc.) and run just the vocals through. Side One uses premium QSC and JBL front of house speakers and subwoofers and Midas mixing boards to give a full range and spectrum of sound and has proper trucks (check out our fancy truck above) and cargo vans (below) to properly transport things.
Stage volume: for some event bands, especially the weekend warrior types that aren’t really professionals, this is their opportunity to bring out their Marshall stack and let it rip! Think the opening scene of Back to the Future. Side One differs here in that most members use in ear monitors to hear themselves and direct amplification for guitar, bass, and keyboards. By keeping stage volume low, this again is another way to control things so that our tech has almost exclusive authority over the volume of the band.
Issues: if you see the rusty, old broken down van out front of your venue, you should be thankful that it actually made it there and your band’s gear arrived. Because Side One is a volume provider, we put a lot of money and maintenance into having a fleet of new vehicles and gear that work so you don’t have to worry about whether or not the band and gear will make it to your venue and if it does, that everything works as it should. When we first started, I bought middle of the road wireless mics to use for ceremonies only to discover that in the world of wireless mics, there’s two categories: expensive or doesn’t work. 2 ceremonies worth of crackles and dropouts taught me this lesson the hard way and I took them back for the more expensive version. I often joke with our team that perfectly executing an event is a zero. The minimum requirement of our job is that everything is flawless and that is the beginning point of our standards.
Decor: Usually the last thing on a musician and especially sound tech’s mind is the aesthetic of the event. Because Side One was co-founded by a wedding planner, we understand that the “look” is so much a part of the event. We go to great pains to make sure that Side One not only sounds great, but also looks great. From making sure that cabling on and around the performance area is clean and organized to scrims on speaker stands to making sure that speakers are regularly painted if there are chips in the wood or the grills are bent.
“Conference AV” - Very often when we play corporate events, the conference will be going on throughout the week and we are the big gala dinner and dance party on the last night. In these types of situations, the client will hire one AV company to provide audio and video during the entire conference. These AV companies are sometimes even part of the venue if you’re booking at a hotel or convention centre and despite them having a lot of gear, big video walls, and crew, very few of these AV companies suprisingly have much experience when it comes to bands. They’re very good at mixing a podium mic or single lapel mic for a guest speaker and running the powerpoint presentation for the Thoracic Surgeons of Saskatchewan’s Summit Conference, but when it comes to having 24 mic and DI inputs, monitors, and not to mention the dynamic range of sometimes a 16 piece band that we’re providing, they are way out of their league. There is also usually a limited amount of time during the “room flip” from the last meeting in the room to converting it to a full dinner and dance set up, so not having much experience combined with up against the clock is a recipe for disaster. In these instances, we recommend bringing in our tech as a liaison between Side One and the AV company, we can even provide the stage gear (mics, monitors, and DIs that a typical conference wouldn’t need but only for the band) for a fraction of the cost that the AV company would charge you.
To illustrate the value of our production team, recently I had a conversation with an event planner that we work with a lot in the Kelowna area who’s helping a client that had to scale down to a 50 person max wedding because of Covid-19. Every person on site needed to be accounted for and could not be more than 50 including vendors. On a conference call with the client who had to start make hard decisions about family members vs vendors due to restrictions, when the topic came up about having our tech simply show up in the morning for load in and soundcheck then at the end for tear down, she from working with us several times, convinced the client that having our tech Bryan on site throughout the event was essential as he was more than the sound tech, but was more of a technical director of the event. She relied on him for the flow of the day from the ceremony (mic-ing up and mixing the officiant and cueing ceremony musicians), to cocktail hour (starting cocktail hour playlists), to dinner (prompting the MC and toasts and hitting iPod stings like the entrance song and cake cutting), to post dinner (managing the video/slideshow), and into dancing where he began his real job of mixing the band. Needless to say our production team are the backbone of Side One’s success. They are the first to arrive and last to leave an event and often their days are 16 hours long and not only we love them, clearly the industry does too. ❤️
