A warning about sound limiters

Before confirming your venue, we strongly encourage you to ask if they have a sound limiter installed. The answer to this question could significantly impact your celebration, and here's why.

What Are Sound Limiters?

Sound limiters are devices wired into venue power sockets that monitor room noise levels. When noise exceeds a preset threshold, they automatically cut power to the sockets. While these devices are typically set around 95dB (similar to a food processor), we've encountered venues with limits as low as 75dB, which is merely the equivalent of a vacuum cleaner. This variation in settings can dramatically affect your event's atmosphere.

Why Do Venues Have Them?

Sound limiters are typically installed when venues are located near residential areas where neighbors have lodged noise complaints with the local council. In response, councils often require venues to install these devices as a condition of their entertainment license. Additionally, some hotels choose to install limiters voluntarily to prevent parties from disturbing other guests who may be trying to sleep, even without council mandates.

The Challenge for Your Event

While we can professionally control music volume, sound limiters respond to the total noise level in the room. This means they're triggered not just by music, but by the natural sounds of celebration - your guests' applause, singing, cheering, and general enjoyment. These are exactly the sounds you want at a successful event, yet they're often what triggers the limiter.

Decibel Levels Explained

To help you understand what various sound limiter settings actually mean for your event, here's a comparison of common sounds and their typical decibel (dB) levels:

• 30-40 dB: Whispered conversation, quiet library
• 50-60 dB: Normal conversation, office background noise
• 60-70 dB: Typical restaurant noise, dishwasher running
• 70-75 dB: Vacuum cleaner, busy traffic, shower running
• 75-80 dB: Alarm clock, busy restaurant during peak hours
• 80-85 dB: Blender, electric mixer, average city traffic noise
• 85-90 dB: Petrol-powered lawnmower, food processor
• 90-95 dB: Motorcycle, subway train, hair dryer
• 95-100 dB: Car horn, sporting event, typical nightclub
• 100-110 dB: Live rock concert, chainsaw, ambulance siren

What This Means for Your Event:

• Venues with 75 dB limiters: These extremely restrictive settings mean your music will be limited to roughly the volume of a vacuum cleaner or normal traffic noise. Your guests would need to speak in hushed tones to avoid triggering the limiter.
• Venues with 85 dB limiters: At this level, music volume is comparable to a food processor or busy traffic. Normal conversation and laughter from a small group could potentially trigger the limiter.
• Venues with 95 dB limiters: This more reasonable setting allows music at a volume similar to a typical London Underground train. While this permits a more festive atmosphere, enthusiastic group singing or applause could still trigger cuts.

Ideal party atmosphere: For reference, a successful dance floor at a wedding or birthday celebration typically operates around 90-100 dB, with momentary peaks during particularly exciting moments or announcements.

Real Impact

To illustrate this impact, at a recent wedding, the sound limiter interrupted a pivotal moment. Just as the bride and groom were concluding their first dance, guests began to applaud and cheer. This natural celebration triggered the limiter, cutting power and stopping the music abruptly. While venue staff worked to reset the system, the moment was lost, guests returned to their seats, and the carefully built atmosphere dissipated.

Technical Concerns

Beyond the social impact, these sudden power interruptions pose technical risks to professional sound equipment. Our systems require clean, uninterrupted power supplies and proper power cycling procedures. When power is abruptly cut and restored, the resulting surge can potentially damage amplifiers and blow speakers, compromising the quality and reliability of our service.

Event Management Difficulties

When operating at a venue with a sound limiter, instead of focusing on creating the perfect atmosphere and reading the crowd, we must constantly monitor the limiter levels. This diverts our attention from what should be our primary focus - ensuring your guests have an outstanding time.

Perhaps most significantly, we often find ourselves in the awkward position of having to discourage the very behaviors that make a celebration memorable. Rather than encouraging guests to sing along to their favorite songs, clap to the music, or cheer during key moments, we must actively work to keep guest enthusiasm in check to prevent triggering the limiter. This goes against everything we believe makes a great party - we should be encouraging celebration, not suppressing it.

For live bands, the challenge is even more significant, as they have less ability to control their volume levels instantly. The combination of live instruments, singing, and natural crowd response makes it extremely difficult to operate under these restrictions.

Our Professional Recommendation

While we fully understand the reasons venues must sometimes install sound limiters, we believe it's crucial for our clients to understand their potential impact on an event's success. We strongly recommend considering alternative venues without limiters where possible. If you're considering a venue with a limiter, we encourage you to discuss the specific settings and restrictions with the venue management.

We maintain a detailed Venues Page listing local venues and their sound limiter status to help you make an informed decision. For more specific guidance about your event plans or to discuss venue options, please don't hesitate to contact us directly.

Remember, your celebration should be focused on creating memories, not managing noise restrictions.

What if I've already committed to a venue that has a limiter?

If you've already committed to a venue with a sound limiter, there are a few strategies we can implement to minimise disruptions while still creating a memorable event:

1. Get detailed information from your venue. Ask your venue management specific questions about their sound limiter:

• What exact decibel level is it set to? (This helps us plan appropriate music levels)
• How quickly can it be reset after tripping? (Some reset automatically, others require staff intervention)
• Remember that even after power is restored, our equipment needs additional time to reboot and resume properly

2. Adjust musical expectations. We'll need to carefully manage the playlist to work within the venue's constraints:

• Songs that traditionally encourage enthusiastic singing along may need to be limited
• We'll focus on music that maintains consistent volume levels rather than tracks with dramatic peaks
• Key moments can be scheduled during naturally quieter periods of the reception

3. Explore alternative power options. Some venues may have solutions available if you ask the right questions:

• Enquire whether any nearby power sockets are NOT connected to the limiter circuit
• If available, we can use these for critical equipment while still monitoring overall sound levels
• This setup means that even if the limiter trips, basic sound can continue without a complete interruption
• Note that some venues can't or won't permit this arrangement, but it's always worth discussing the possibility

4. Consider distributed sound setup (i.e. more speakers distributed around the venue). We can adapt our equipment configuration to work within limiter constraints:

• Multiple smaller speakers positioned strategically throughout the space can provide better coverage at lower overall volume
• This approach allows guests to hear music clearly without requiring sound levels that might trigger the limiter
• While this requires additional setup time (and is outside the normal scope of our party package prices), it can significantly improve the experience at limiter-restricted venues

Remember that while these strategies can help manage the situation, a venue with a restrictive sound limiter will still impose certain limitations on your event's atmosphere.