This was the first significant outdoor event I can remember us doing and none of us on the team had much experience doing this sort of thing before. In the process of putting it on we learnt a few valuable lessons.

Things we did right:

1. Had the right people taking responsibility. Having people who know what needs to be done, who to ask if they don’t, and can get it done makes a huge difference. Good people take the burden off the person at the top and make it easy to put on big things.
2. Had excellent volunteers helping. Many willing hands make light work, and having a large army of volunteers made the day so much easier. They were a great help moving gear, setting up staging and fetching water in the heat of the day.
3. Hired a good projector and screen. Your little projector you use inside will not cut it outside, and neither will a little portable projector screen. We hired an inflatable screen and used a 16,000 Lumens projector (the one mounted in your church is probably around 2,000). Without it the video content would’ve been impossible to see in daylight.
4. Marketing. Thanks to some creative people we managed to get an article in the local paper, banners on bridges, flyers in letter boxes and given out by hand.

Things we could do better next time:

1. Leave more time for setting up staging. Despite the large army of volunteers who helped set up the staging, it would’ve been handy to have started this an hour earlier. Staging is critical to the entire setup – until it was completed we were unable to set up sound equipment and instruments and have rehearsals and sound checks. Better to have it finished early than having it hold up everything else.
2. Get a more powerful front-of-house sound system. The one we had sounded nice and clear and adequately covered the park in sound, but it wasn’t as loud as we would’ve liked. It’s also important to note that you need big subwoofers outdoors. The high frequencies are directional and carry well, but low frequencies aren’t directional, so they need a lot more power.
3. Picking the correct aspect ratio for the video output. I’m probably nitpicking here, but the screen was better suited to 16:9 and I had prepared only for 4:3. Had I known I would’ve ensured we could’ve made full use of the available screen real estate.
4. Plan for the wind. It was really windy on the day we did this. Someone was smart enough to have a sandbag for the lectern, but a few more would’ve been handy for the cymbals on the drumkit. Don’t forget those microphone windsocks either.