Simple Stage Planning for Great Sound and Worship

How do you render a stage setup? That’s the question posed to me by a reader. It’s a simple question that leads to a simple, yet lengthy response. Setting up a stage is more than just placing gear and placing people, it’s about consistency. I received an email asking, “Most of the time we just show up to church and spend a lot of time just trying to figure out where to put the instruments.” This means that right off the bat, there are two problems related to stage planning.

Simple Stage Planning for Great Sound and Worship

1. The sound tech’s don’t know, in advance, who’s playing.

This is a problem for several reasons; they can’t set up the equipment stations on the stage before the band arrives, they don’t know who/what they have to work with until the last minute, and they waste time each week doing the same thing that should only take a short period of time.

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2. The band members don’t know where they should be on stage.

This is a problem for several reasons as well; they waste time talking about setup instead of time that could be spent practicing, limited practice time means less time for the sound tech to get a good mix, and finally, the band doesn’t have a feeling of closeness on the stage that comes from familiarity. Specifically, in this last instance, I’m talking about the drummer always being on the right side and the guitarist always being on the left, and so forth and so on. Walking on a stage and being in the same place week after week, provides a level of comfort and ease – because it’s familiar.