AV for the TAILGATE!

Ahhh Fall is in the air. Autumn color, winter wardrobes and of course, tailgating for football games! The tailgate party is many things: a culture, a reception and a regional village. It’s also a bit competitive since let’s face it, everyone want to be known for having a great tailgate party. When everyone else is serving wings and hamburgers, you’re bbq’ing oysters and smoking ribs. Cause thats how you roll! Go team!

The quickest way to kick your tailgate party up to the next level is to add AV. Being able to watch the morning games is a big bonus when partying before your event. In the old days, a true tailgate warrior had a tube tv with rabbit ears and was picking up the game of the week although picture quality varied. Nowadays, you can have satellite TV with every game in any sport ready to go in HD.

It’s fairly easy to set a 37” flatscreen on a table and run your video feed from the dish. You can also buy a monitor tripod stand and mount your display. Memorize horizon landmarks to make aiming the satellite dish easy every time. Todays flatscreens are relatively inexpensive and you can have two TV’s displaying different games. Placed on either end of your party, people will move between the two and your event will not become static. I use the FSR HDMI Digital Ribbon cable and a HDMI splitter/booster to send HD signal to my displays.

Next add audio for your party. Boom, kicked up a notch! A good pair of active speakers like the QSC K8 is perfect. They provide wide coverage, superior audio quality and are small enough to pack away in the trunk. I also use a Audio Technica System 10 wireless microphone to make announcements like the ever popular “ DINNERS READY!” without having to shout over the crowd. A small format mixer like the Presonus Studiolive 1602 allows me to use my ipod to control the volume and source selection wirelessly from where I reside 90% of the time at my tailgate: BEHIND THE GRILL! You don’t need a stereo feed for a tailgate party.If you don’t have a mixer, just send the audio out of your cable box to the RCA input on the back of the speaker, then link to the next speaker via the mix output.

Of course, the whole rig revolves around the generator. I recommend spending the extra on a quiet generator, not only for long term reliability but also for the fact that they are about 30db quieter than the cheaper ones. Cheap generators fail mid party. Don’t be that party.

Your satellite dish can be mounted on a simple speaker tripod stand.
I have a rule at my tailgate party: No music unless it’s NFL Films Soundtrack. Otherwise its audio from the game on the main TV. We watch pre-game and the play by play is always going in the background. But every tailgate party is different and unique and thats what makes it great! I tailgate next to a group from Fresno, CA who create a Latin flash mob salsa dance every game at noon. They play a loud dance music and the whole place erupts in dance!

You can elevate your tailgate by adding an audio visual system without breaking the bank. What you can’t buy is the experience of people telling you that this is their first tailgate experience and it’s absolutely amazing!

George Astin – Manufacturers Representative. George comes to us after years in management at Leo’s Professional Audio. It has been said about George, “Take a good thing…add George…now it is a better thing”. The Farm is a better thing now. George enjoys the mountain bike and has been awarded “Tailgater of the GAME” at numerous 49ers games. Cheerleaders like George too.