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We do the sound for Johns’ Boys, who are probably the largest male voice choir in the UK right now. They were on Britain’s Got Talent a few years ago, and these days they sell out everywhere they go: York Minster, Chester Cathedral, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, the Wexford Opera House, theatres in London, Edinburgh, Salisbury.

Those are some of the most beautiful and most difficult rooms in the country to put sound into. So when people ask what live choral AV actually involves, the honest answer is that it is one of the more demanding things we do. Here is why.

A choir is not a band

A choir presents a completely different problem from a rock band. You are not reinforcing a handful of instruments, you are capturing a large group of voices and making them clear and natural for an entire audience, without the result sounding harsh or artificial.

Done well, the audience should barely notice the sound system at all. They should just hear the choir, full and balanced, whether they are in the front row or right at the back. Getting there takes a careful, restrained approach, because the moment a choir sounds processed, you have lost what makes it special.

The building is part of the instrument

Here is the thing that makes cathedrals and minsters so hard: they are extraordinarily reverberant. The room itself is part of the sound, and it does not always cooperate.

In a space like that, the natural echo that makes a choir sound glorious is the same echo that can turn the words to mush if you over-amplify. The skill is working with the acoustics rather than fighting them, placing and mixing so the clarity holds without killing the atmosphere the building gives you for free. Every venue behaves differently, so you read the room and adjust.

The practical challenges nobody sees

Beyond the mix, these venues come with real practical constraints, and you respect them or you do not get invited back.

Access time is usually very tight, so load-in and load-out have to be planned to the minute. You cannot tape cables to the floor in a historic building, so you use cable mats instead. There are restrictions on where equipment can go, and strict rules about what you can and cannot do to the fabric of the building. None of this is negotiable, and a company that turns up not knowing it causes problems immediately.

For more on this side of the work, we have written separately about working events in churches and cathedrals.

Why these relationships last

The choirs we work with tend to stay with us for years. Johns’ Boys are one. Belle Voci, who appeared on The Voice, are another, and they feel like family, they come to us and go nowhere else.

There is a practical reason behind the warmth. A choir that sounds right one night and wrong the next has a problem, and consistency across very different venues is hard to achieve unless the same people travel with them and know the choir’s sound. When a choir trusts a company to get it right in York Minster one week and a Dublin cathedral the next, that trust is worth holding onto on both sides.

That is the part of live choral AV that does not show up in a kit list. It is knowing the choir, knowing the rooms, and being the steady hand that makes a sold-out cathedral sound effortless.

Frequently asked questions

What does live choral sound engineering involve?

Capturing and reinforcing a choir in spaces that are often highly reverberant, like cathedrals and minsters, making a large choir clear and natural for the whole audience without losing the character of the room.

Why are cathedrals difficult for live sound?

They are extremely reverberant, access time is tight, and there are strict rules on the building. You cannot tape cables down, so you use cable mats, and equipment placement is often restricted.

Do you provide sound for choirs across the UK?

Yes, at venues including York Minster, Chester Cathedral, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, and the Wexford Opera House.

Why does the same sound company travel with a choir?

For consistency. A company that knows the choir brings the same sound from venue to venue, which is why our choral relationships tend to be long-term.

Planning sound for a choir or concert in North Wales?

We provide live event production and live sound for choirs and concerts across the UK and beyond, including some of the country’s most demanding cathedral and theatre spaces.

Get in touch and we will talk through what your performance needs.

Darren Hughes is Director of Pivotal Sound & Lighting, a live event production and AV company based in Llay, Wrexham, North Wales. PSL provides live sound for choirs including Johns’ Boys and Belle Voci, at venues across the UK and beyond.

The first question I ask any outdoor festival client is not about speakers at all. It is: what is your wet weather plan?

That tends to surprise people. But choosing a PA system for an outdoor festival is never just about the size of the PA. It is about the field, the crowd, the power, the weather, and the budget, all pulling against each other. Get the thinking right and the right size of system becomes obvious. So here is how we actually work it out.

Start with two numbers: capacity and area

There are two questions that begin every festival quote. How many people are you expecting, and how big is the area you want to cover?

Those two numbers almost never line up neatly, and that is where the useful conversation starts. Two hundred people at a tight stage is a very different job from two hundred people spread across a large field, even though the headcount is identical.

Capacity or area: the conversation that saves you money

When capacity and area do not match, I put the choice plainly to the client.

We can cover the entire field, but then the pricing reflects the area, not the number of people. Alternatively, we can price for the capacity. If you are expecting 200 people and someone chooses to stand 50 metres from the stage, is it reasonable to expect them to move a bit closer? If it is, we use a smaller system and the price comes down.

That is a real conversation we have, and it is an honest one. There is no point selling a festival a system built to flood an empty field. Matching the system to how the crowd will actually gather is usually where the biggest saving lives.

The type of act changes everything

A local act and a headline act are not the same specification, even on the same field. The energy, the volume, the low end, and the expectations all shift with the bill.

A community stage with acoustic acts has different needs from a stage built around a headliner the whole site has come to see. We spec for the act as much as for the field.

Why we use line arrays outdoors

For outdoor events we always prefer line arrays over point source speakers. Ours are active and weather protected, which matters in a British field, and they throw sound evenly across a large area in a way point source boxes cannot.

For the subwoofers, there are three main ways we set them up: an end-fire array, a straight line across the front of the stage, or a left and right stack. Which one we choose depends on the type of music, the coverage we need, and the power budget available. Bass-heavy music in a wide field is a different decision from a folk stage in a smaller space.

To give a sense of the range: a smaller event might use single 18-inch subwoofers with the line array tops ground-stacked. A large one might run up to twelve twin 18-inch subwoofers, with two line array hangs of eight boxes each, flown above the stage. The same company, very different rigs, driven entirely by the brief.

The four things that decide it all

In the end, four variables decide the system: the capacity, the size of the field, the power budget, and the financial budget. Change any one of them and the answer changes.

Power itself is rarely the problem. We have good relationships with local power companies, so getting clean power to where it needs to be is usually straightforward.

The honest budget conversation matters more. If you expect Wembley but I quote for a local pub, you will not be happy with the outcome. If you want a local event but I quote for Wembley, you will not be happy with the quote. Telling me the real budget early gets you the right system, not the wrong one.

For more on the practical side of running these events well, see our guide to outdoor event production in North Wales.

Frequently asked questions

How do you work out what size PA an outdoor festival needs?

We start with the estimated capacity or ticket numbers and the size of the area to be covered. Those rarely match, so the next conversation is whether to cover the whole field or price for the crowd you actually expect.

Why does covering the whole field cost more?

Because the system is priced for the area, not the headcount. Often it is reasonable to expect the crowd to gather closer, which means a smaller system and a lower price.

Are line arrays better for outdoor events?

For outdoor events we always prefer line arrays over point source speakers. Ours are active and weather protected, and they throw sound evenly across a large area.

What is the first thing to plan for an outdoor festival?

The wet weather plan. It shapes the equipment, the cover, the power, and the layout.

Planning an outdoor festival in North Wales?

We provide outdoor event production and festival sound across North Wales and the wider UK, sized honestly to your crowd, your field, and your budget.

Get in touch and we will help you work out exactly what your event needs.

Darren Hughes is Director of Pivotal Sound & Lighting, an AV and event production company based in Llay, Wrexham, North Wales. PSL provides festival and outdoor event sound, line array systems, and full production across the UK.

Outdoor event production in North Wales lives and dies by the things people do not see. The speakers get the attention, but it is the weather plan, the ground, the access, and the power that decide whether the day actually works.

We do a lot of outdoor work across North Wales, from fields and fun days to festivals, and the pattern is always the same. The production thinking happens long before anyone hears a note. Here is what that looks like.

Weather comes first, always

The first thing we plan for is the weather, because in this country it is the one thing you cannot argue with. The very first question I ask an outdoor client is what their wet weather plan is, and it shapes everything that follows.

It is not only rain, either. A British day can be hot and sunny at 2pm and drop to six degrees by 10pm. That matters more than people expect, because sound behaves differently in hot air than in cold, and humidity changes it again. The mix that sounds right in the afternoon will not sound the same once the temperature falls, so the team has to plan for the sound to shift across the day, not set it once and walk away.

For the equipment itself, this is part of why we use line arrays outdoors, and why ours are active and weather protected. Kit that can handle a wet field is not a luxury here, it is the baseline.

Ground, access, and getting everyone out safely

After the weather, the next things we look at are the practical realities of the site. What are the ground conditions? How do we get equipment in, and how do people get in and out safely?

Access and egress sound like dull words until the day a heavy load has to cross a soft field, or a crowd needs to leave quickly. Planning the routes, the load-in, and the load-out properly is a large part of what production actually is. The kit list is the easy bit by comparison.

Power is usually the easy part

Power worries clients more than it should. In practice it is one of the more straightforward elements of an outdoor event for us.

We have good working relationships with local power companies, so getting clean, reliable power to where it needs to be is rarely a problem. It still needs planning early, but it is not the thing that keeps me up the night before a show.

Coverage and budget have to be honest with each other

How much of the area you cover comes down to budget, and the two do not always match the size of the field.

A festival with a capacity of around 4,000 people usually has the budget to cover a large area properly. A smaller event might have the same physical footprint but a much smaller budget, which means coverage has to be prioritised and some honest compromises made. The space and the money are not always in step, and the job of a good production company is to be straight with you about that rather than overselling.

If you want the detail on how we actually size the PA itself, we have written a separate guide on what size PA system you need for an outdoor event.

A local company for local fields

Being based in Llay, Wrexham, we know the ground around here, and our work takes us right across North Wales and well beyond. Knowing the region, the venues, and the weather is a quiet advantage. We have seen what these fields do in the rain, and we plan accordingly.

That local knowledge, paired with proper kit and an honest budget conversation, is what makes an outdoor event feel effortless to everyone watching. The effort all happened before they arrived.

Frequently asked questions

What are the biggest challenges of outdoor event production?

Weather is the number one challenge, which is why the wet weather plan comes first. After that it is ground conditions, access and egress, power, and how much of the area you need to cover.

Is power a problem for outdoor events?

Rarely. We have good relationships with local power companies, so clean power is usually straightforward. It needs planning early, but it is not the thing that causes problems.

Why does outdoor sound change through the day?

Temperature and humidity affect how sound travels. A day can be hot at 2pm and six degrees by 10pm, so the afternoon mix will not sound the same at night, and the team accounts for that.

Do you cover outdoor events across North Wales?

Yes. We are based in Llay, Wrexham, and provide outdoor event production across North Wales and the wider UK.

Planning an outdoor event in North Wales?

We provide live event production and outdoor production across North Wales and the wider UK, with the kit and the local knowledge to handle whatever the weather does.

Get in touch and we will help you plan it properly.

Darren Hughes is Director of Pivotal Sound & Lighting, an AV and event production company based in Llay, Wrexham, North Wales. PSL provides outdoor event production, festival sound, and lighting across the UK.