OSHA, Safety and event volumes

[mathking]

I have been to a couple of FIRST regional competitions where I thought the volume was too loud. My phone has a cool decibel meter in it, and (I used to DJ for extra cash so I am geeky about this) I routinely check the sound level whenever there is loud music. At Buckeye I never saw a reading above 80 Db. And I didn't have to strain to talk to anyone where our team was sitting or in the pits. Though I would still like to thank the Tiger Techs of 963 for the ear plugs they were handing out. At Buckeye, the position of speakers down for matches was such that the really loud sound was as you walked in (again, thanks to 963), but where the alliances waited for matches was below and between speaker sets, so the noise level was not that bad, meaning nothing close to the red zone on my meter.

I do think the sound is likely to vary significantly from regional venue to regional venue. Different systems and different accoustical properties. As I said, I have been to regional competitions as an observer at which the music was loud enough to do the old DJ trick of twisting up a bit of napkin for each ear. But the original post is dead on that, given FIRST's emphasis on safety, it is something that each regional should examine to make sure the noise level is not dangerously loud.