The Venue Tech Spec: Advancing From the Venue Side

Every band that advances a show properly asks the same dozen questions, and every band that does not advance discovers the answers at five o'clock on the day: four monitor mixes that are really two, a drum riser that does not exist, a stage door up a flight of stairs that nobody mentioned. Answer the questions once, on one page, and send that page with every confirmation. That page is the venue tech spec. It is the room's half of the advance — the band's half is the stage plot and input list that Advancing a Show tells them to send you — and rooms that have one get advanced bands, better soundchecks, and a house engineer who is not improvising.

What Goes on the Page

One page, dated, in plain text a touring band can read on a phone in a van. In this order:

• The stage. Width, depth, height, and whether there are risers. Where it is relative to the door and the bar. Anything odd: a pillar, a low ceiling over the drum position, a step.
• The PA. What the mains and subs are, roughly what they cover, and who runs them — a house engineer every night, a house engineer by arrangement, or nobody, which is a thing a band needs to know three weeks out, not three hours.
• The console. Make and model, channel count, and the number of inputs actually free once the house has patched the kit and the vocal mics — the second number is the one that matters.
• Monitors. How many wedges, and separately how many mixes — the number a band plans around — plus side-fills and whether in-ear systems can be fed. If your four wedges share two mixes, say two.
• Mics and DIs. The inventory, by model and count. The Working Inventory is the list most rooms this size end up with; copy the format.
• Backline. What lives in the room and may be used — drum shells, a bass rig, a keyboard amp — what is shared on multi-act nights, and what is nobody's but the band's. Say which is which, because "there's a kit" means four different things.
• Power. How many circuits reach the stage and where the outlets are. A keyboard rig stage left with no power within reach is a ten-minute delay with an extension lead and a bad start to the evening.
• Load-in. The door to use, the hours it is open, stairs or not, where the van parks and for how long, and the code or the name to ask for.
• Times. Load-in, soundcheck order, doors, set times and the curfew, with the curfew marked as the hard stop it is.
• Contacts. The house engineer and the night manager, with the phone number that is answered on the night.
• House rules. Volume policy, haze and pyrotechnics, the merch spot and whether there is a cut, and anything the licence makes you enforce.

The member Venue Tech Spec Template is this list as a fill-in sheet. Print it, complete it with the engineer, and send the same file to every act.

The Timeline Is Part of the Spec

Bands advance against times, so give them times. The convention that works on a three-act bill: the headliner loads in first, soundchecks first, and leaves the stage set; the acts below check in reverse order, so the opener checks last and plays first with its gear already in front. Each act gets a stated check length, the changeovers get a stated length, and doors open on time whether or not the last check is finished — say that sentence in the spec, because the alternative is a line of paying customers in the rain while an opener fine-tunes a snare. Load-In and Changeover is what the bands have read about sharing the stage; your timeline is what makes it work.

If the room does not do full soundchecks — many do not on weeknights — say so: "line check only from 7:30, headliner full check by arrangement." A band that knows will plan a set that survives a line check. A band that expected forty minutes and got five will blame your engineer.

Send It, Then Ask for Theirs

The spec goes out with the offer or the confirmation, not on request, and it goes with a sentence asking for the act's stage plot and input list by a date a week or more before the show. Point them at the stage plot template, the input list template and the free plot maker if they do not have one — a plot drawn in that tool is one the house can read.

When nothing comes back, that is information. Tell the engineer to plan for the worst case the spec allows — the full input count, every mix in use — and to run a line check only. The band that did not advance has chosen that; the band that did should never pay for it in lost check time.

The House Engineer's Night

The engineer is the most influential member of staff for whether an act comes back, and the spec is partly for them: it is the agreement about what the room promises, so they are not the one apologising for a wedge that was never there. Before the night, give them the bill, every plot and list that arrived, the set times and the room's volume policy. On the night, give them the authority that goes with the job — the volume call, the curfew call, the "we're opening doors now" call — and pay them on time, every time, because engineers talk to bands and bands talk to each other. Working With the House Engineer is the brief the acts have been given; it is worth knowing what they were told to ask yours.

Keep It True

A spec is a promise, and a wrong one is worse than none. Date it, review it whenever a piece of gear changes hands, and have the engineer sign off on it, because the two numbers bands plan around — free inputs and monitor mixes — are the two that rooms most often state from memory. The room that advertises six mixes and has four has broken the advance before the van arrives.

Worth Knowing on the Way Out

• Sent unasked, on a single page — stage, PA, console, mixes, mics, backline, power, load-in, times, contacts, rules.
• Mixes, not wedges — the number a band plans around is the one that is true.
• The timeline is in the spec — reverse-order checks, stated changeovers, doors on time regardless.
• Ask for the plot and the list by a date — and plan for the worst case when they do not arrive.
• Date it and keep it true — a wrong spec breaks the advance before anyone has played a note.