I am a lighting designer, so I come to sound as the colleague who shares the truss, the cable runs and the schedule. Over the years I have watched good audio plans and weak ones, and the difference usually shows up before anyone touches a fader. It sits in how clearly the purpose was stated.
Begin by writing down who will hear the result and where. A television audience listening on small speakers needs a different mix from a crowd in a field, and a broadcast feed taken from the room is a separate job from the front of house sound. If one event has to serve both, say so plainly at the start.
Then note what the audio is for within the programme. Is speech the priority, as in a panel or a studio discussion, or is it music that carries the show? A short paragraph on this, agreed by the producer and the technical lead, saves many arguments later and gives the sound engineer something concrete to design against.
- Name every audience: room, broadcast, stream, recording
- State whether speech or music leads the programme
- Agree who signs off the final mix
Capture is where most problems begin and where they are cheapest to prevent. List every source that will make a sound: presenters, musicians, playback, audience reaction, and any remote contributors joining by link. For each, decide how it will be picked up and whether it needs its own channel.
Think about the room as well as the microphones. A hard-walled studio, a tent and a marquee each behave differently, and a rig that sounds clean in rehearsal can pick up rain, generators or a neighbouring stage on the day. Ask for a site visit, or at least photographs and dimensions, before any equipment list is fixed.
Check how many channels you genuinely need and how many spares. Wireless microphones depend on radio frequencies that are shared with other crews on busy sites, so ask who is coordinating them. A good engineer will tell you what they would leave out as readily as what they would add.
- List sources and the pick-up method for each
- Ask who coordinates radio frequencies on site
- Allow spare channels and spare microphones
A common question is whether the broadcast and the room can share one mix. Sometimes they can, for a small speech event with simple sources. For a concert or a festival stage the answer is usually no, because what suits a crowd, with strong low end and a loud kick drum, can sound harsh and unbalanced once it is sent to air.
Decide early whether you want separate mixing positions, and who operates each. Two engineers need to be able to talk to each other, and the broadcast mixer needs a feed that is not affected by whatever the room operator does with the speakers.
Ask how the engineer will handle changes during the show: a late running order, a guest who arrives with their own equipment, a performer who wants more in their ears. The answer tells you whether the plan has room for real life, which is what a live production mostly consists of.
- Decide whether broadcast and room need separate mixes
- Confirm how the two mixers will communicate
- Ask how last-minute changes are handled
Monitoring is easy to overlook and hard to fix on the day. Performers need to hear themselves and each other, presenters often need a programme feed and a producer's voice in the earpiece, and the engineers need a listening position they can trust. Each of these is a separate signal path with its own equipment.
Check the listening conditions for the mix itself. Mixing a broadcast in a noisy truck or beside the stage means judging balance in poor conditions, so ask about headphones, near-field speakers and whether there is a quiet position for the person responsible for the broadcast sound.
Agree the talkback arrangement too. A clear channel between gallery, stage manager and audio can save a whole segment when something goes wrong, and it costs very little compared with the equipment around it.
- Map every monitoring path: stage, presenter, producer, engineer
- Ask where the broadcast mix will be judged
- Set up a talkback channel before rehearsal
Ask for a signal flow diagram, even a rough one. It should show how each source reaches the desk, how the mix leaves it, and where the feed goes to the broadcast, the recording and any stream. If nobody can draw it, the plan is not finished yet.
Then ask what fails first and what then. A dropped cable, a dead battery in a wireless pack or a crashed playback laptop will happen at some point. Sensible plans carry duplicates for the critical paths, a backup recording of the programme feed and a clear instruction on who decides to switch.
Finally, check how the audio plan meets the rest of the production. Delays between sound and picture, timing against the lighting cues and the shared use of power and cable routes all need agreement with the workflow planner and the technical lead, well before load-in.
- Request a signal flow diagram for review
- Identify the critical paths and their backups
- Record the broadcast feed separately as insurance
Audio needs time that other departments sometimes forget to give it. Check that the schedule includes a line check, a sound check with the real performers or presenters, and a rehearsal long enough to set levels and fix problems. Squeezing these items is the most common reason a good plan sounds rushed.
Agree who is on site and when. The engineer who designed the system should ideally be the one who runs it, or at least briefs the person who does, with notes on settings and routing that stay with the production afterwards.
After the event, ask for a short written handover: what was used, what was changed and what you would do differently. It becomes the starting point for the next production and helps anyone planning similar work to compare plans with something concrete in front of them.
- Book a line check, sound check and rehearsal
- Confirm who runs the system on the day
- Ask for a written handover afterwards
None of these questions needs technical training to ask, and the answers tell you a great deal about how a sound plan was thought through. If a supplier can describe the audience, the sources, the mixes, the monitoring and the fallback in plain words, you can decide with confidence. If they cannot, that is worth knowing before anything is signed. Take the list into your next planning meeting and see what comes back.
