I recently provided the PA for a gig powered by a generator. After my experience over the summer, you might understand if I was a bit nervous. My anxiety being sparked, I made no bones about what I needed: A generator capable of 14kW minimum. (See, when you’re connected to a municipal power grid, there are usually megawatts of capacity to spare when a big peak gets drawn. With a generator, there’s no such situation. You can’t get a 10kW peak out of a 2kW gennie. Physics is a harsh mistress.)

Well, guess what the show organizer did? They rented a GORGEOUS, 25kW diesel with one-button start. It came with a full tank of fuel, and get this: It left with a full tank of fuel. I think the continuous load on the unit at any given time was about 1200 watts. That’s less than 5% of the generator’s rated capacity; Statistically, it’s right on the border of significant vs. insignificant. We sipped at the well of power, and yet were sated, because the well was deep.

And that’s what you want, especially when the cost to rent portable power really isn’t that high. You want the gennie to be out of sight, out of mind, just like municipal power.

If you have to think about the generator, you got the wrong generator.

If you have to wonder if you got enough generator for the gig, you got the wrong generator.

It’s similar with PA systems as a whole, although I think the functional realities are harsher. If you have to ask if you have enough PA, you don’t have enough PA…and I bet that most of us, on a regular basis, don’t have enough PA. That is, we don’t have a functionally unlimited reserve of output that we barely touch as the show goes on. We regularly run our rigs at very large fractions of their total capability.

I’ve seen column-style portable systems run up to their limiters.

I’ve seen affordable “point and shoots” run up to their limiters.

I’ve seen three-ways stacked on double 18s where the system was run up to its limiters.

I’ve seen reasonably-powered, multi-box-hang array systems over a huge pile of subwoofers where the system was run up to its limiters.

Lest you get the wrong idea, all of those cases involved reasonable operators who were simply asking the rigs to deliver what they felt they needed to keep up with the needs of the show.

The audio side of audio is pretty unforgiving. Even a very solid system can be outrun by a band that’s moderately determined to be “extra loud.” The system capacity necessary to avoid thinking about that ever again is incredibly expensive and shockingly voluminous in physical size. Everything is a logarithmic curve, and that means the point of diminishing returns starts at zero capability.

It’s a sobering thought, yet when we realize how many of us navigate those waters regularly, we don’t have to be crushed by it. If we have to ask, we don’t have enough PA. Most of us will have to “ask” a lot in our careers. The economic and logistical factors that real shows deal with in real rooms are just that way.

I think.