concerts

Coyote Drive-In Theater Concert

July 1, 2020

The May concert was produced by Onstage Systems at the Coyote Drive-In Theater in Fort Worth. The event was a fun, but challenging event to produce. The Coyote Drive-In Theater concert also had the significance of being one of the first events to bring live music back to Fort Worth in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdown.

coyote drive-in theater concert audience — Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

Featured Performers

Drive-In Theater Concert Event Challenges

drive-in concert performers and sign — Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

The biggest challenge was accounting for the health and safety of everyone involved. That was why the Coyote Drive-In Theater made a great venue choice for hosting a live, outdoor concert. The audience area was large and designed for attendees to be separated in parking spots. Attendees were assigned parking to every other parking spot. This helped create natural social distancing space between attendees. Onstage Systems also followed the latest health guidelines for hand sanitation and wore masks in close proximity. Coyote Drive-In Theater helped ensure social distancing with signage and limiting occupancy around the restroom and concession areas.

See more featured work from Onstage Systems

Onstage Systems fully utilized the Coyote Drive-In Theater’s space while providing the addition of the lighting, mobile staging, and full audio support appropriate to a concert of this size, to included FM transmission. This allowed attendees the option to listen to the concert over their car FM radios while enjoying the air conditioning. However, many concert attendees took the opportunity to get a little sun and fresh air, listening to a full L’acoustics concert PA system out in the open air from lawn chairs and pickup beds.

Photo by Andrew Sherman – Lone Sound Magazine

The second big challenge Onstage Systems had to overcome to make the event a success was the Coyote Drive-In Theater’s schedule. The drive-in was in full operation with nightly movie times starting after dark. The Friday show did not end until 11 PM. The Onstage team hustled in the dark to set up the stage, lighting, and all the integration for the Saturday afternoon show. And once the show was over they struck the scene in two hours and had Coyote Drive-In Theater back to normal in time for its 8:45 PM movie.

While the Coyote Drive-In Theater concert was a one-time event, Onstage Systems looks forward to doing more drive-in concert events in the future. In addition to producing live in-person events, Onstage has experience producing live streams and other virtual events.

Learn more about Onstage Systems virtual event services HERE.

4 Ways to Enhance Your Concert Stage Design

January 8, 2020

Your concert stage design allows you to intimately connect with your audience and showcase your creativity in all its glory. Therefore, on the day of your event, the last thing you want is to perform on a stage that wasn’t optimized for visibility. Here are 4 ways you can enhance your concert stage design and create memorable moments for your audience:

1. Consider The Audience’s Point of View

Crowd ready to view the concert from any angle

No matter how impressive your concert stage looks, if your audience can’t see you, it won’t matter how many special effects you include in the performance. Before you start designing the stage, take a closer look at the audience’s point of view.

Is your venue located on an incline or small hill that requires the audience to look up? Would it be difficult for those standing in the back of the venue to see your performance? Are you expecting a large turnout or is this a smaller event?

Depending on your audience’s visibility, crowd size, and the design of the venue, you’ll need to adjust your stage design to ensure everyone in the crowd can see every part of your performance.

2. Create Lasting Memories with Memorable Lighting

Knowing how to properly light a stage requires a mix of technical expertise and a splash of creativity. But if you want to bring your concert stage design to the next level, you’ll want to invest in memorable lighting effects that set the mood.

In addition to stage and spotlights, you can work with an event production company like Onstage Systems that has an all-encompassing inventory of LED fixtures, decor lighting, atmospheric lights, dimmers, and any other light fixture you’d need.

These upgraded lighting setups will shower your venue in colorful hues and transform the atmosphere in the room. The secret to designing an ideal lighting setup is to align your performance with your lights. Do you have a high energy, dynamic performance? Consider automated lights that change with the music. Is your performance sentimental and ethereal? Opt for mood lights that complement the music.

3. If You Can’t Build A Tall Stage, Build A Wide One

Stage design is enhanced with a wide stage

The size and scale of your stage has a lasting impact on how the audience experiences the performance. A small stage surrounded by a 360-degree audience offers an intimate feel while a massive stadium with a giant stage offers a completely different concert experience.

Your ability to imagine creative stage designs is limitless, but the technicalities of your venue may constrain how large you can design your stage.

Instead of building a towering stage with sky-high lights and special effects, opt for a wide stage that envelops your audience instead. Wide stages are perfect if your venue is indoors and constrained by the height of the building. A wider stage also allows you to creatively segment your performance into sections so different parts of the performance can take place in various sections of the stage.

4. Cover Up Wires and Cluttered Equipment

Stage design is enhanced by covering the clutter

Now that you’ve secured a venue and established a layout for your stage design, the last item on your to-do list is to cover up wires and mask any cluttered audio visual equipment.

As you’ll quickly discover during your setup, wires, crates, and AV equipment can accumulate on the stage and distract your audience. The easiest way to hide unruly gear is to cloak your mess behind curtains, fences, or other design elements.

If for some reason you’re unable to discreetly cover your tracks, another solution is to use lighting equipment to dim your cluttered areas and spotlight the performers. This simple act of misdirection will keep the crowd focused on the show instead of the clutter.

Putting Your Stage Design Together

When you design your concert stage, your priority should be to enhance the customer experience. Concertgoers want to feel immersed in the performance with zero distractions to get in the way of their enjoyment.

Although these four tips can help guide you towards an enhanced concert experience, there are always unforeseen circumstances that can make your path towards success more difficult. Whether it’s a change of weather, last-minute venue relocation, or a crate with missing equipment, anything can happen.

Avoid the stress of designing your concert stage and contact an event production company like Onstage Systems. Our team is comprised of industry veterans who understand how to produce memorable concerts and have experience attending dozens of concerts themselves. At Onstage Systems, we aren’t just event production specialists, we’re music fans just like you who want nothing more than to create lasting memories.

What Sound Equipment Is Needed For a Concert?

May 31, 2018

The Elements Of Concert Sound

Audio plays a vital role in any live concert performance. Onstage Systems offers the technology and expertise for superior execution of this type of event.

In order to understand what goes into such an event, we offer an introduction to these elements.

Input Sources

In order to present any audio source, we need to be able to capture it. There are several ways to accomplish this task. We will go over a few of the most common applications:

Microphones are designed to capture sounds and send them electronically to a controllable solution, typically a preamplifier
Direct Interface is another way to modify an electronic source of audio and prepare it to send electronically to a controllable solution, typically a preamplifier
Line Source feeds come directly from sources like professional grade video players, digital media servers, wireless microphones, etc

Onstage Systems has an inventory of several types of microphones, direct interfaces and line source equipment from several providers. Feel free to discuss with us the appropriate equipment and its application.

Amplifiers

Amplifiers are overlooked in many cases. When selecting an amplifier, power efficiency and output are strong considerations.

Flexibility with speaker settings is also extremely important. Speakers need signal processing before this stage in order to maximize the effective output of any speaker enclosure.

DSP’s or Digital Signal Processors integrated within the amplifier is the most efficient way of handling these two tasks.

Onstage Systems uses the L’Acoustics line of DSP inclusive amplifiers exclusively. This allows us the flexibility to utilize virtually every amplifier for every speaker enclosure we have in inventory.

speakers

Speakers

We host a large inventory of a variety of speaker enclosures to provide the best coverage for the audience.

The largest portion of our industry comes from L’Acoustics speakers. L’Acoustics technology continues to outperform the competition with the amazing sound quality that is sought after by many audio system designers and audio engineers.

Audio Consoles

Audio consoles, or mixing consoles, are the central hub of signal flow.

They are used to receive all inputs. This equipment also has the pre-amplification that is needed for microphones, Direct Interfaces and other sources of live and pre-recorded sources.

Each source is represented by an input. Each input can then shape the source to the desired sound for presentation.

The audio console then routes the sound through varying paths to include amplifiers and speakers.

Monitors and IEM

Monitoring systems provide artists with a custom mix of some or all of the audio sources.

Traditionally, monitors were custom designed loudspeakers placed on stage directed toward the performer.

This practice has its flaws in the sense that those around the monitor would be impacted by what came from the monitor.

Monitors have the ability to provide anyone in the area with a ready reference of audible sources and are constantly evolving.

With the ever-growing demand for more audible sources, the invent of IEM systems (in-ear monitors) created a way to provide clear, concise and discrete monitoring while reducing the necessity for increases in stage volume.

This also afforded the audience a clear representation of the show with better control. Learn more about what Onstage Systems offers for sound and audio equipment rental and take a look at our AV Checklist.

Audio goes hand in hand with visual equipment, so don’t forget about screens and projectors! Learn more about how Onstage Systems can help you make your next concert sound perfect with our equipment rental service. Call us or fill out this form.

Onstage Systems provided an extraordinary level of service and professionalism that truly exceeded our expectations; from the moment the first proposal was received until the last item was packed onto the truck at load out. Hyacinth and John came with expert advice, seasoned knowledge and good humored personalities that made working with them such a pleasure. Their team were quick on their feet with troubleshooting and were quick to adopt the rest of our team on site. We were ecstatic to work with Onstage Systems and hope to continue cultivating our relationship with them on future events.

Marini van Smirren

General Manager, Day for Night