Stage Power for Bands and Small Events: The Complete Checklist

Stage Supply Guides

Stage Power for Bands and Small Events: The Complete Checklist

How to work out what your rig actually draws, find the right sockets in an unfamiliar venue, run extension leads safely, and keep the power on for the whole gig. Written for function bands, mobile DJs, village halls and anyone putting on small events with ordinary 13A supplies.

~11 min read · Updated July 2026 · By the Stage Supply team

In this guide: Adding up your load · Mapping venue sockets · Extension leads done properly · RCD protection · PAT testing · Generators · Noise limiters · The checklist · Common mistakes · FAQ

Adding Up Your Load Honestly

Almost every band power problem starts with the same mistake: adding up the numbers printed on the back of the gear as if they were what the gear actually draws. They are not. A powered speaker advertised as “1000W” is quoting amplifier output, usually a peak figure, not mains consumption. Music has a high crest factor, meaning the amplifier spends most of its time well below full output, so real-world mains draw under a typical band set is a fraction of the headline number. The honest way to budget is to work with realistic continuous draw, then leave headroom on top.

One number to burn into your memory: a standard UK 13A socket at 230V gives you roughly 3kW (13 x 230 = 2,990W). That is the ceiling for a single plug, and the fuse in that plug is the thing that enforces it. Here is what a typical five-piece function band rig realistically draws under load. These are ranges, because gear varies, but they are the right order of magnitude:

Add that up and a full five-piece rig with lights and haze lands somewhere between roughly 2.3kW and 4.8kW. The bottom of that range fits on one 13A socket with almost nothing spare. The top of it does not fit at all. The practical conclusions:

• Never plan to run everything from one 13A plug. Even when the sums say it just fits, you have no headroom for the haze heater cycling on while the subs are working.
• Split audio and lighting onto separate sockets, ideally on separate circuits. This is also good practice for noise: lighting dimmers and switch-mode supplies are the classic source of buzz on the audio side.
• Give the smoke or haze machine its own feed. Its heater switches a big load on and off all night, which is exactly the kind of load you do not want sharing a fused extension with your mixer.
• Do the sum before every unfamiliar gig, not once per rig. The night you add a second sub and a followspot is the night the plug fuse goes during the first chorus.

If your sums come out well above 3kW, or you are being offered blue 16A or 32A outlets at bigger venues, you are moving into distro territory. That is a separate subject with its own connectors, cable sizes and rules, and we cover it properly in our event power distribution guide. This guide stays in 13A land, where most band and small event work actually happens.

Mapping the Venue’s Sockets

A 13A socket on the wall tells you almost nothing by itself. What matters is the circuit behind it. UK small venues are usually wired with ring or radial circuits protected at the fuse board, typically 32A for a ring final and less for radials, and several sockets in the same room often share one circuit. Two sockets three metres apart can be the same circuit wearing two faces, so plugging the PA into one and the lighting into the other may have gained you nothing.

When you arrive at an unfamiliar venue, or better, when you advance the gig by phone, find out three things:

1. Which sockets are on which circuit. Ask whoever knows the building. If nobody does, look at the consumer unit (fuse board): the circuit labels, even rough ones like “sockets stage end” and “sockets kitchen”, tell you how the room is split. Knowing where the board is also matters at 11pm when a breaker trips and the caretaker went home hours ago.
2. Where the kitchen loads live. The classic village hall failure is the band sharing a circuit with the serving hatch. A kettle draws close to 13A on its own, a catering urn similar, and both switch hard on and off. If the interval tea round trips the breaker mid-set, this was why. Stay off any circuit that feeds the kitchen or the bar.
3. Whether the sockets are RCD protected. Modern boards protect socket circuits with RCDs or RCBOs; older installations may not. More on why this matters below.

Extension Leads and Cable Runs Done Properly

Unwind cable drums fully

A wound cable drum is a heater. Current flowing through coiled cable generates heat that has nowhere to go, layer trapping layer, which is why every reel carries two ratings on its label: one fully unwound, and a much lower one wound. On typical 13A reels the wound rating is commonly only a few amps, a fraction of the unwound figure. Running a PA and lighting rig through a mostly-wound drum is one of the most common ways to melt a lead at a gig. The rule is simple and absolute: if the drum is carrying real load, unwind it completely, even when you only need five metres of a fifty-metre reel. Flake the excess in a loose figure-of-eight behind the stage rather than leaving it on the reel.

Use the right cable, not the nearest cable

• Rubber-jacketed H07RN-F is the touring standard for a reason: it stays flexible in the cold, shrugs off being trodden on and coils properly. Cheap PVC leads stiffen, kink and split at the plug. For leads that gig every weekend, 1.5mm² H07RN-F is the sensible minimum, 2.5mm² for longer runs and heavier loads.
• Longer runs need thicker cable. Voltage drop over a long thin lead robs amps of headroom and can make smoke machine heaters slow to recover. Keep 13A runs as short as practical and step up the core size for anything long.
• Outdoors, connectors must be rated for it. A standard indoor 4-way lying on grass is a fault waiting for dew. Use IP-rated connectors (IP44 as a minimum for outdoor use, higher where rain is likely), keep connections off the ground, and point cable glands downwards so water runs away from, not into, the joint. Never wrap a joint in tape and call it weatherproofed.

Route cables so nobody meets them

• Run cables along walls and behind stage lines, not across walkways. Where a run must cross a route the public or staff use, cover it with cable ramps or matting, not gaffer tape. Tape on carpet fails, tape on wet ground fails instantly, and neither protects the cable from a loaded trolley.
• Leave slack at both ends of every run so a snagged cable pulls slack, not a plug out of a socket or a speaker off a stand.
• Keep mains and signal cables apart where you can, crossing at right angles rather than running side by side for metres. It costs nothing and buys quieter audio.

RCD Protection: Not Optional Outdoors

An RCD (residual current device) disconnects the supply in milliseconds when current leaks to earth, which is exactly what happens when a damaged lead, a wet connector or a faulty appliance puts mains voltage somewhere a person can touch it. Current UK wiring regulations (BS 7671) require 30mA RCD protection for ordinary socket outlets in most settings, so modern venues will usually have it at the board. But you cannot see that from the socket, and plenty of older halls and clubs predate the requirement.

The working rule for bands and small events:

• Outdoors or anywhere damp, 30mA RCD protection is non-negotiable. If you cannot confirm the venue circuit has it, put a plug-in RCD adaptor or an RCD-protected extension at the head of your run. They are cheap insurance against the worst outcome this trade has.
• Test it. RCDs have a test button for a reason: press it at setup, confirm it trips and resets, and you know the device is alive before it matters.
• Indoors, it is still worth carrying one. A plug-in RCD weighs nothing and turns “does this 1970s social club board protect us?” from a research project into a solved problem.

PAT Testing and What Venues Actually Ask For

First, the legal position, because it is widely misunderstood. There is no law called “PAT testing” and no statutory requirement to test appliances annually. What the law (the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989) requires is that electrical equipment that could cause injury is maintained in a safe condition. The regulations do not say how, by whom, or how often. The HSE’s own guidance is explicit that testing frequency should be based on risk, and that user checks and visual inspection catch the majority of faults. Formal combined inspection and testing, what everyone calls PAT, is one part of a sensible maintenance regime, not an annual tax stamp.

That said, the practical reality for working bands and event crews is set by venues and insurers, not by the letter of the law:

• Many venues, councils and event organisers will ask for PAT records before letting your gear on site, usually alongside proof of public liability insurance. Arguing the legal subtleties at load-in does not get you the gig; a tidy test record does.
• Gig equipment is high-risk by HSE’s own categories. Gear that is loaded in and out of vans, trodden on, yanked and rained on justifies frequent inspection. For hard-working leads and IEC cables, a formal test annually with visual checks every gig is a defensible, common regime.
• Do the user checks that matter. Before every gig: look at each plug, lead and connector for damage, cracked casings, strain at the cable entry and signs of heat. This costs two minutes and finds more faults than the annual test does.
• Keep records. A simple register (item, ID number, date inspected, date tested, result) is what venues want to see, and it is your evidence of due diligence if anything ever goes wrong. If you run enough gear to justify it, a basic PAT tester from our testing equipment range pays for itself quickly against paying per-item testing rates.

Generators at Small Events: Know the Limits

Outdoor fetes, marquee weddings and field events often mean generator power, and this is where a band needs to know the boundary of its own competence. Two things to understand:

• Generator earthing is a job for a competent person. A generator is its own island: how it is earthed and bonded determines whether RCDs will actually trip and whether a fault is survivable. Getting this right involves decisions about earth electrodes and system type that are not guesswork territory. BS 7909, the code of practice for temporary electrical systems for entertainment, exists precisely because temporary event power done casually hurts people. If an event is supplying you from a generator, someone competent should own that system; your job is to ask who that is, not to improvise it.
• Inverter generators are the audio-friendly kind. Conventional open-frame generators can wander in voltage and frequency as loads switch, which digital mixers, switch-mode supplies and amplifier rails do not enjoy. Inverter generators produce a clean, stable sine wave and behave far better with audio equipment. If you are ever specifying or hiring for your own small outdoor gig, an inverter unit sized with generous headroom over your calculated load is the right call.

The band-sized takeaway: plug into generator power that a competent person has set up, with RCD protection confirmed, or do not plug in. “The hire company dropped it off this morning” is not the same thing.

A Word on Noise Limiters

Many small venues wire their stage sockets through a noise limiter that cuts power when the room exceeds a set level. This matters to your power planning for one blunt reason: a limiter trip is a hard power cut to everything plugged into those sockets, mid-song, with whatever thump and data loss that implies for powered speakers and digital desks. Ask at advance whether a limiter exists, what level it is set to and, critically, which sockets it controls; where possible keep the mixer on an unswitched supply. We cover playing limited rooms properly, including rig choices that keep you under the threshold, in our small venue PA guide.

The Stage Power Checklist

This is the whole guide compressed into something you can run down at advance and again at load-in. Screenshot it, print it, tape it in the van.

Before the gig

• Add up realistic draw for tonight’s rig, not the spec-sheet watts. Know your total in kW.
• Confirm with the venue: how many sockets, which circuits, none shared with the kitchen or bar.
• Ask whether stage sockets run through a noise limiter, and what it is set to.
• Ask whether socket circuits are RCD protected; pack a plug-in RCD if unconfirmed.
• Visually check every lead, plug and connector; pull anything damaged out of the workbox.
• Confirm PAT records and public liability documents are current and to hand.
• Outdoors: confirm who is responsible for the generator or temporary supply, and pack IP-rated connectors and covers.

At load-in

• Find the fuse board. Know how to get to it during the show.
• Split the rig: audio on one circuit, lighting on another, haze or smoke on its own feed.
• Unwind every cable drum completely before applying load.
• Route cables out of walkways; ramp or mat anything that crosses a public route.
• Leave slack at both ends of every run.
• Press the test button on every RCD in the chain; confirm trip and reset.
• Power up in order: mixer and sources first, amplifiers and powered speakers last. Power down in reverse.

During and after

• After the first couple of songs, feel your plugs and drum connectors. Warm is normal; hot is a warning.
• If a breaker trips, halve the load on that circuit before resetting. It tripped for a reason.
• At load-out, coil leads properly and bag connectors; the lead you abuse tonight is the fault you find at the next gig.
• Log anything that failed or ran hot, and fix or replace it before it goes back in the van.

Common Mistakes That End Gigs

• Daisy-chained 4-way blocks. A 4-way into a 4-way into a 4-way is still one 13A plug at the wall, now with three extra sets of contacts to fail and a fused chain nobody can reason about. One socket, one properly sized lead, one distribution point.
• Coiled drums under load. Covered above, worth repeating: the reel that “was fine last time” was slowly cooking. Unwind it fully, every time.
• Taped joints in the rain. Insulation tape is not a weatherproofing system. Outdoors means IP-rated connectors, joints elevated off the ground, glands facing down.
• Sharing the kettle circuit. The interval urn takes the whole band down. Ask about the kitchen at advance, not after the trip.
• Everything through one plug because it fitted the maths. Calculated load is not peak load. Heaters cycle, subs hit, and a rig running at 95 percent of a plug fuse has no life expectancy.
• Resetting a tripped breaker without changing anything. If it tripped once, it will trip again, probably during the encore. Shed load first.
• Ignoring damaged leads because they still work. A lead with the outer sheath pulled back out of the plug works right up until it does not, and the failure mode involves exposed conductors at a gig full of people.

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FAQ

How much power does a band need?

A typical five-piece function band with a powered PA, backline, LED lighting and haze realistically draws between about 2.3kW and 4.8kW continuous, depending on the rig. That is one to two 13A sockets’ worth. The spec-sheet watts on amps and speakers massively overstate real mains draw; work from realistic continuous figures and leave headroom.

Can I run a whole band off one 13A socket?

A small rig sometimes can on paper, but you should not plan to. A 13A socket gives roughly 3kW, and a full band rig sits close to or above that. Splitting audio and lighting across two circuits gives you headroom, protects you from a single trip killing everything, and reduces lighting noise on the audio.

Do extension leads really need to be fully unwound?

Yes, whenever the lead is carrying significant load. Coiled cable traps its own heat, which is why every reel carries a much lower wound rating on its label. Unwind the drum completely and flake the spare cable loosely; a part-wound drum feeding a PA and lighting rig is a fire risk, not a tidiness choice.

Is PAT testing a legal requirement for gig equipment?

Not as such. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require equipment to be maintained in a safe condition, but neither the regulations nor HSE guidance sets a fixed testing interval; HSE explicitly says frequency should be based on risk. In practice, venues and event organisers routinely ask for PAT records, and gig equipment leads a hard enough life that regular testing plus per-gig visual checks is the professional norm.

What extension leads should I use for outdoor gigs?

Rubber-jacketed H07RN-F cable with IP-rated connectors, joints kept off the ground, and 30mA RCD protection at the head of the run. Standard indoor PVC 4-ways and taped joints have no place outdoors, even under a gazebo, even “just for the afternoon”.

Do I need an RCD for every gig?

Outdoors or in damp conditions, always, and confirmed working via the test button. Indoors, modern venues will usually have RCD protection at the board, but you often cannot verify that quickly, so carrying a plug-in RCD and using it when in doubt is cheap and sensible.

Can I plug my PA into a generator?

Only into a generator supply that a competent person has set up and earthed correctly, with RCD protection you have confirmed. Generator earthing determines whether protective devices actually work, and it is not a guess-and-go job. For your own small outdoor events, inverter generators are strongly preferred for audio because they produce a clean, stable output.

What size cable do I need for a long power run?

Step up the core size as runs get longer to limit voltage drop: 1.5mm² H07RN-F is a sensible minimum for working 13A leads, with 2.5mm² for long runs or leads feeding heavier loads. If your runs are long enough that this starts feeling marginal, you are drifting into 16A and distro territory, covered in our power distribution guide.