Interesting thread! BB & I help run Shammick Acoustic (Shammick is the nickname of the village, so let's not get sidetracked). All performers are in the room and live - we refuse to let dead people perform. The events are acoustic - i.e. in our definition we only book acts using acoustic intruments(or none) - those that produce an audible sound without amplification. Do we use amplicfication? Yes we do. When the local planners gave permission for the funtion room, they insisted on so much acoustic dampening, for the sake of the neighbours, that the room is totally DEAD. So we set up mics, mix them down, and run the result through the house speakers. The result is that, providing you've got the right person on the desk, the entire audience hear a balances natural acoustic sound evenly spread throughout the room. However, if the room weren't DEAD, we wouldn't use the P.A.

So we're 'live', we're 'acoustic' and we use P.A. -ermmm!