Hi..I've just played in the concert band this afternoon in the local park bandstand. first time in an outdoor venue with band (excluding busking)! Lovely sunny day, flute warm....which is always good! :-) Felt I layed better....wonderful feeling..just wondered if anyone else feels the same or is it just me getting excited!:-)?

I've only done 2 performances outside- and for one we were on a high stage (i.e. with stairs) and it was cold and windy in April, then the other was in the local high street a week before christmas, and it was FREEZING!!!
But, ask me again next saturday night- when I'll have done a "wandering/roaming musician" act...in the summer so potentially not too bad-I'll let you know!
Really nervous, everyone I know wil be there and cus what i'm doing is unusual to most (recorder+renaissance instruments) it's like revealing a secret life! I hope everyone is nice...I know what some of them can be like...
it is different playing outside...but i'm yet to have the nice weather to match...when it happens i'm sure it'll be delightful...

I have played outside on the back of a lorry on the seafront at Hogmanay, to the accompaniment of fireworks! There was a massive audience (a car-park full) although I suppose most of them had turned up to watch the fireworks. But I think it always adds a new dimension playing outside.

Well done you!

It can be a joy in fine weather!

I've played outdoors with a recorder consort - All in a Garden Green and that sort of thing - great fun.

Not so good the year it rained, but ok the ones it didn't ...

Yes..think I'm a fair- weather -player! :-)..flute doesn't like getting wet:-(


Luckily the weather was kind! am playing at Dunster soon..with a few forum members...think that's inside though!:-)

Glad you had better weather than the girls for their outdoor concert today. They have done a few recently but todays was the worst weather wise.

I play in a string quartet which occasionally provides background music for garden parties, balls 'n things... We did one last weekend outside, with people in expensive hats and lots of Pimms - it all felt very English.Though rather windy... we had to peg our music to the stand!

My wife and I hired ourselves out as a violin/piano duo for weddings while we were in Plymouth. One wedding was at a beautiful posh hotel in the Devon countryside. The intention was to have the wedding ceremony outside, but the weather was proving to be very changeable. What followed resembled a scene from a carry on film; several times the hotel staff set up bows/ribbons etc. outside then quickly had to take them in when the rain came on. Then when the rain stopped, the hotel manager (claiming he had never had to change an outside venue for a wedding before) insisted that the staff yet again set up for an outdoor ceremony. Of course, we had to do the same with our electric piano - in out, in out etc. At one point we even started playing - the wind was blowing our pages all over the place, then the rain started again. Finally the decision was made to have the ceremony indoors, resulting in another top-speed transfer of items inside!
I said to my wife, 'It's just as well the bride hasn't seen what's been going on'. We learned afterwards that she was in her room in the hotel watching the whole sequence of events unfold before her!
Anyway, everything went fine after that, and the Bride didn't seem at all distressed. (Fortunately the rain didn't cause our piano to 'blow up' either!)
So the moral of my ramblings is -: check the weather forecast before agreeing to play outside!

bit of a problem if the booking person is asked in sunny may about an outdoor concert in december, and at the time seemed like a great idea...(to him...)
and then he realised it might be just a tad chilly, something to do with being early morning in mid winter, but not until he's got us all out in the cold!

ALL our current wind band gigs are outdoors! I agree that it depends very much on the weather - but I also think that when an outdoor gig goes wrong it goes very wrong .... something to do with not being able to hear one another perhaps, or playing to a largely uninterested audience.

Playing at the Royal Show soon. Should be fun!

nick