One of the changes that I have noticed in many folk clubs since the introductions of PA systems is the performer/audience orientation. Few rooms are exactly square, and it was normal practice to place the performer(s) in the middle of one of the longer sides, with the audience often arranged in a curve around them.

This made good accoustic sense as sound decreases in proportion to square of the distance from it's source (Inverse Square Law). This means if person A is half the distance from the performer of person B, that A will receive FOUR times the sound level of B. For optimum listening, it is therefore best to keep the audience within a band that is within a fairly fixed range of the performer.

Most clubs which use PA systems seem to make their performers face the length of the room. This means that if the distance from the performer (or rather the speakers) to the back row is six times that to the front row, the people in the front row could be receiving 36 times more volume. If the volume is too high at the the back, no wonder the audience further forward get deafened.

I recently heard the "Harri Krishna" brigade around the SOHO area of London and the chap who does the singing/chanting now uses a cheap battery PA on his back which makes him sound just like a Dalek !

Finally, Kevin McGrath, if you're going to be at Eastwick this Sunday, you can have the pleasure of performing through one of my sound systems - unless of course it pisses down with rain like it did last year, and we're all confined to inside the pub again!