Sound For 1,200 SF Tent

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Sound For 1,200 SF Tent

I’m new to the forum and I am a major newbie. I have some cheap powered speakers we use for tailgating, but we blue tooth them with a tablet and they sound great. Okay, we have been doing an annual BBQ cook-off for many years. We had a band most years. Baggage, each year we dealt with baggage. Late, too long of breaks, not playing the songs we agreed to, wanting passes for too many people, profanity … on and on. Last year we tried a couple solo artists and did kind of a open mic type of thing. Disaster. Equipment issues constantly and talent questionable. Plan C …

This year we want to invest in an affordable system we can send playlist to via a tablet. But we also want to be able to plug into the system so we can have an occasional solo or duet live. Guitars and mic. I have been surfing the internet and my personal experiences all lead to JBL. Seems so many times I hear DJs or live music that I feel sound amazing, it turns out to be JBL. But I am confused. Friend said to go with EON 515XT, but he knows as little as i do. I need some direction. I am assuming I need mic, speakers and stands, cables, mixer???, sub???, cables … do I go with wireless/bluetooth, how do I adapt the system for live music? I need simple instructions, step by step, along with equipment recommendations. I don’t even know what a mixer is for! If I am in the wrong place, send me packing! Budget is about $1,200. The tent holds 200 people, but there are 2 outdoor areas with another 100. It is packed most of the time and is a 3 day event. Sure we want it loud at times, as this can get to be a real rowdy bunch. But I am a sound quality nut. THAT is important to me.

Thank you!!

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What type of system have you been hiring the past few years - I’d start there assuming it was loud enough and had enough connections for everyone.

For a party/wedding/gig of that size as a bare minimum when I was doing hire we would do you 2x 12’ tops 2x15 subs, 10ch Mixing desk, 4 x mics and 2 floor stage monitors and it would cost you around $200 for the night and be fully multipurpose for bands / dj’s etc…

Bluetooth is not the way to go on this. The mixer is literally for mixing sounds, plug in an ipod or something from its headphone jack into the mixer.

Mics also go to the mixer, Ideally you are going to need a person who is able to set up the rig properly and babysit it when you have live acts that need to plug other stuff into the mixer e.g. guitars / keyboards.

Personally I don’t think that your budget is going to get you “HQ” sound to fill a tent (outdoors requires more welly).

If its a once a year thing, I’d honestly consider hiring rather than buying as you’ll get 10k of gear that sounds great for 1/4 the price of buying crap that you will push to the limit.

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A package like these would be OK for your use. You may want to order some longer cables, depending on the specifics of the setup. Add a couple mic stands (and maybe more mics) and you’d be in business for everything you described. And don’t forget extension cords, power strips, table, etc…all “as needed.”

Here is a package that would work for the live musicians. I have NO idea about the monitors, but they should be OK for the intended usage.

Here is the same package without the monitors.