Alfresco Ambience: A how-to for background music outdoors

“Both too little sound and too much sound can be harmful” -World Health Organisation (WHO)

Music outdoors: the basics

• Create a different vibe indoor to outdoor
• Attract walk ins with a unique and fun music strategy
• Placement and quantity of speakers is crucial, more is more
• Volume is key, more is not more
• Remember your core demographic

Speak Up!

Think about the placement and number of speakers. We can’t all afford to install hundreds of new speakers but we can place the ones we have more strategically.  More is more: forget one in the courtyard corner cranked to maximum volume for the poor patrons seated directly below.

Of course, you can’t just direct those speakers, hookup the sound source, press play and assume you’re right to go. In Australia all businesses must hold a OneMusic licence or have other permission granted from the copyright owners if they want to play copyright-protected music in a public or commercial setting – this is called public performance of music. Music licensing ensures that artists and rights holders grant permission for their work to be used and are fairly compensated.

Go lightly on the volume dial

If you seat customers outside (where there is no reverberation from ceilings to help bounce around the sound waves) yes, you’ll have to turn the music up – but only ever so slightly. WHO* says clear speaker-to-listener distance is about 1 metre. 

Patrons want to be able to talk to each other. So, in a relaxed conversation – where you can 100% understand what is being said - the tolerable background noise levels including music range from 35 decibels (a quiet ceiling fan on low speed) to 45 decibels (a dishwasher).

You will need to talk to your friend with “more vocal effort” if the background sound pressure level is near 65 decibels (a vacuum cleaner) but it is of course still possible.

Baby Boomers vs Gen X vs Gen Y

From about 40 years of age, people demonstrate impaired ability to interpret difficult, spoken messages when compared to people aged 20–30 years. So if you’re serving to Baby Boomers or Gen X there’s even less incentive to crank up the volume too much in your courtyard, footpath or garden space as they may be craning their necks to hear each other speak. 

Turn HQ (Heads in the Queue)

If your business has had an envious eye on the hip eatery next door that’s generating a queue – outdoor music gives you chance to get that fan base dining with you! Tourists walking by and looking at your menu on the wall are unconsciously drinking in a sample of the whole hospitality experience, the smiling wait staff, the look and smell of food that’s being served, and music they can hear from OUTSIDE your establishment.

Consider an outdoor live music space

Outdoors can also be a great place to host live music and generate greater walk ins. OneMusic has a handy guide on how to host live music in small spaces if you need to know where to start.

References

*Guidelines for Community Noise - World Health Organization

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3936542/