I charge the same rate all year round for school dances, by I don't do a lot of them, so not sure how helpful I am here. I mainly do weddings.
Valerie--Why again do you chose to use so many dual 18s? Wouldnt you be better buying fewer cabinets that produce the same SPL? Would make setup and teardown quicker.
Small concerts (Nokia center in LA) comes to mind. They use 6 dual 18's and have thousands of attendees.
Several reasons actually, and a valid question.
Yes, we could pack about the same punch with a smaller PA, but we keep our EVX 18's in service because they are very effective, we own them, and they provide a certain look. The 24 18's hold up the 12 3way high packs at a suitable height, so changing subs would force a change in tops as well because we'd lose our platform for them. Currently 2 dual 18's holds up 2 hipaks at about a 5' height (top of sub/bottom of hipak). That puts the horns at about a 9' height which gives us great coverage in large rooms. (We play large convention centers and fieldhouses with a dance floor of up to 3000). Sure, we could switch to a different top as well, but again, at a (fairly substantial) expense to equal the quality of what we currently have....so for a sum of money our advantage is possible time (Labor) savings.
Addressing those in detail.... Right now setting the PA is not the largest portion of our setup time. Lighting is a bigger time killer. Our setup takes just over 3 hours. We allow 5 because with big systems, a little glitch can cause a big delay. We frequent locations where load in alone can take more than an hour.....Century Link Center in Omaha requires a reserved loading dock, down a service hall, up a freight elevator (which requires their personnel to run AND may be shared with other vendors), then a trek down another service hallway before a significant trek across 2 very large carpeted ballrooms and to our setup spot. Fewer cabinets would trim the number of trips in and out with PA (currently it takes 24 trips of PA cabinets), and sometimes that would add up to some time savings, and other times where we load in and set up on the other side of the loading door it wouldn't matter much. If we went with a smaller PA we'd have to go to a flown rig to at least equal what we currently have. Now that presents a few issues. It's not fast to rig a PA. It would require either a much bigger truss system to be able to ground support a flown PA, or it would require certified rigging points and venue approval along with ceiling access by walkway or lifts and certified riggers. Considering most of our work is in schools, they seldom have certified rigging points established. One of our big selling points to schools and other events is the fact that our system is all ground supported. Rigging requires additional time, effort and concern on the client and/or venue. Beyond that, once you enter a union facility, you will be hiring union labor to do any rigging, which adds time (they don't move real fast typically) and significant expense. Yes, we work in a few union facilities, and because we are all ground support, we rarely are required to hire union labor. I can think of one time where we were required to hire union labor and that was in Sioux City. They let us by fairly light and we could hire 2 people and only had to hire for the load in and load out hours.
Now another factor is the eye appeal. Our system spans over 65' wide. That's the better part of the length of a basketball court. That gives us a giant dance floor that can accomodate 500 or 2500 kids. When we do events of 1500 or 3000 attendance, we have the majority on the dance floor. It's not one of 3 dance areas, and it's not a small rotating dance floor. The majority of the attendance is on the dance floor which is an entire gymnasium or fieldhouse. The speaker stacks are placed at the truss stands which provide protection from that trip hazard. Our entire system is essentially a 'wall'. Yes, kids can be up against the speakers, screens and DJ booth. It's all made for it. We don't have kids going behind screens or into where cords or equipment is a hazard. We used to run some smaller systems and to be honest, the big ones are easier. When kids walk into the room and go OMG this is going to be amazing they aren't looking for trouble. When they walk into a room and go OMG this is so lame, the DJ is going to have a hard time regardless of how spectacular he might be. Start out rock star status and your night will go a lot better.
I'm certainly not saying it's the only way or the best way, it's just our way. Not everyone wants to work that hard. Not everyone wants to pull in with a semi and schlep all that gear in. Not everyone can deal with the power requirements or the technical aspect of keeping a system that size going. It's worked well for us. We quit doing small systems about 10 years ago. We work less often by intent. We just prefer the big system & events.