How many bands out there run their own full PA set-up?

[ASB10]

I was just wondering how many bands out there actually possessed their own full PA set-up rather than relying on house sound establishments and rented gear. PA's are the biggest pain in the ass to deal with in every way (transport, loading/unloading, setup, things going wrong and they usually do, etc.), and my band Third Standard has our own large PA set-up, but I sometimes feel like it's useless to us, because most of the bars that we play in are house sound, or we have a good sound company that runs for us for a great price. Just wondering if anyone else out there faces this ridiculous problem???

[Dave]

Shift carries our own PA and lights everywhere we need it. It is a little bit of a hassle. But we have things worked out pretty well. We generally don't have any issues (knocking on wood).

[Matt_22]

I am with the band Lost Ledny and we also have a large PA that we own and set up when needed. It does seem like a waste when you play a venue that has a in-house system. However, I love to set up live sound and so does our drummer and we look at it as more of a challenge than a job to set up, get a good sound, and have everything work. While we play my brother is learning to edit sound as we play and he helps us run the show as well. So, when you have everyone in the band working to run the pa it doesn't seem like that much of a burden. The only burden is running an opener and trying to adjust to thier style then switch back to ours. In my point of view if the opener sounds bad it will hurt your show and it is impolite not give someone sound that you would want. We also will run live sound for bands on nights we don't play, so our PA actually makes us money.

[FatVin]

A small PA for smaller venues is a good investment, I think. We don't trade on volume anyway so we never need to be as loud as some of you but I don't think we could have gone on for as long a we have without our own PA. When we play places with an in-house system, that just means an easy night of teardown. We can always augment our PA when we need to but those occasions are rare and a small PA will pay for itself over time. I think the more serious you are the more of a neccessity the investment in PA gear becomes, just my opinion.

[Dave]

For claification. We only use our system at places without in-house sound. At places like Bergi's we use some of our stuff (mixer, monitors lights).

[bassist_25]

We always hire production or use in-house sound.

One thing I like about hiring production is that eliminates "PA Politics". Often times, band members will go in together on a PA, and when the band breaks up, it's not clear on who owns it. The only way I would "go in" on a PA is if I owned whole pieces of equipment myself (i.e. I own the monitors and power amps; guitarist owns the subs; etc.). That way, when the band breaks up, I can just take my equipment.

[Dave]

The only way I would "go in" on a PA is if I owned whole pieces of equipment myself

Very good point. We have that covered pretty well. I own the entire PA except for the IEM's which the band owns collectively.

We take a percentage of each gig and put it into a band fund. One of the things we use the fund for is PA repairs. We recently took out a couple 18" EV drivers. The band fund paid for the recones.

It is a pretty good setup that we came up with.

[Brian of the Clan Plush]

We own and run our own PA, and that has opened up alot of gig possibilities that we wouldn't otherwise have. On occasion we'll use our own system even in a place that has their own sound, if we think our system will sound significantly better (Burgi's for example). I run the board from right on stage, so we don't even pay a sound tech. After a while, you get it down to a science and its not a big hassle. We use modern gear that's relatively small but high quality and high wattage, so its not like the old days where you needed an 18 foot box truck to run your own PA. And I totally agree with the previous post that on those occasions where we use the house sound and sound guy, it just feels like a really easy gig. In my experience the biggest drawback to running your own sound is that it keeps you from hanging with the crowd/fans/friends after the gig, because everyone wants to get the PA packed up. The upside is you never go home at the end of a gig pissed off that some no-talent hack just got paid the same (or more) than the band even though he couldn't figure out how to get rid of the stage rumble and heinous squeeling monitors

[tonefight]

I keep a small system ( 2 -18 subs and 2 15 / horn full range cabs ) It takes care of small places where you can't really afford to rent a system.