your party may not be a licensed rave…
but
- if a friend of yours is homeless and spends a few nights in the building beforehand
- your event does not cause noise, traffic or other disturbance to locals
- those attending do not trash the building
the party can be a private party where those who attend do so as a guest of your friend who is occupying the building as emergency living space, until a civil case is brought against him by the rightful owner.. and it isn’t illegal!
as for the ‘leccy…
on the back of your equipment, near where the mains cable enters (or you plug in the IEC (kettle) lead) will be a label such as…
MAO ZEDONG ELECTRONICS FACTORY, SHANGHAI
AMPLIFIER TYPE T2300A
POWER INPUT 230 VOLTS AC 1000 W (sometimes this is written as 1000VA)
if the equipment has a low-voltage power supply with a transformer in the plug top this info will be on the transformer somewhere.
- Write down all the figures of W (watts) or VA (volt amperes) for each bit of equipment. (Watts and Volt-amperes can be assumed to be the same for this calculation, they are slightly different but it is way complicated to explain and doesn’t really cause that much of a problem with small equipment like sound systems)
- Add them all together.
- Check the list (maybe have someone else in the crew check it!) to make sure you have not missed out any important bits of equipment
- Add about 10% to this figure “just in case” (people may bring stuff like laptops and other live music equipment, mobile phone chargers, minidiscs, extra lamps etc)
The resulting figure is the output of the generator set you will need to obtain. Gensets are usually rated in kVA, which is where 1kVA = 1000 VA, usually you get 3.5kVA and 7kVA small gensets.
In most cases two 3.5kVA gensets are fine for starting out.
Two are better than one particularly if using borrowed kit from friends as you can end up with a dead genset on site if they are not maintained properly and you will at least have one backup (this problem stopped my friends rig playing at a recent moot)
IF using more than one genset. Link the earth connections together to avoid problems with audio interference and safety hazards. Use RCDs (earth leakage “trip switches”) to avoid danger from electric shocks in case there are dodgy cables anywhere.
Best of luck with your party!
