Guest Tim's comment reminded me of a customer, not at a session but a dance gig in a room up a flight of stairs. Whistle, fiddle, concertina, guitar, darbooka were the instruments. We thought we could cope with the side fills for house speakers and the wedges for foldbacks and so left the bins & horns in the van. The room was acoustially very bright so we thought we'd be OK even with a full house. The mixing desk was a 16 channel Jands ('lots and lots' of knobs) and was located right at the back, just next to the entrance.

According to Ian, our mixer, after we'd been playing for about half an hour a woman came in, saw the desk on her left, sniffed audibly and turned to the people sitting to her right and said, "It's too loud, isn't it!" They merely shrugged. She then turned to Ian and said, much louder, "It's too loud!" He also shrugged.

"Turn it down!" he shouted.
"I can't" he replied.
"Why not?" she shouted.
Very calmly, he answered,
"It's turned off!

Cheers, Rowan