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Comment by rottyguy | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered why bars crank up the music so high to the extent you're yelling to convey conversation to the person next to you. One of my friends hypothesized that it was done to focus patrons on drinking and not chatter, but socializing is a big part of the bar scene...

Anyone know?

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Have you ever been in a bar at closing, when they turn the music off and the lights back on? It's a stark moment: Oh, right. This is reality.

I can't say that the sibling comments are wrong, but I don't think that's the real reason. Bars (clubs, really) do it because it fosters a feeling of unreality. It makes being at the bar different, and you feel different, and it's (supposed) to be special - it's a party. People show up because it does not feel like normal life.

Personally, the practice drives me crazy. As I intimated above, bars that do this are really clubs at night. I prefer places where a group of people can sit around a table and actually talk over some drinks.

A very good private party DJ(He plays for artist and actors) told me that if you want people to dance, the volume must be very high.

As it was my party I told him to do it as he saw fit and indeed almost all the people (200) danced.

Then one neighbour complained and he lowered the volume (just for a while ;) ) and most people stopped dancing almost immediately. When he boosted the volume again, they all jumped to dance.

It was amazing.

Edit: Typo.

Reply to the comment below: I understand your comment, but the party was in a former s.XIX coastal battery fortress,(now an environmental Hotel). This fortress is excavated on the stone , below the ground level (You don´t see it till you are literally falling in the ditch). The place where the Party took place was 10 meters below the ground level, behind a fortress wall, a 6m high ditch and 1.5 km away from the nearest buildings, separated by rolling hills and Mediterranean woods.

No, sorry but I certainly was not that worried of the volume and the neighbours.

> former s.XIX coastal battery fortress

For a second there I thought that was one hell of a typo but I found out that "s. XIX" is the Spanish way to write "19th century". "Siglo" is another word for century. Now I'm wondering... why? And why use Roman numerals? Was this originally a Catholic thing?

Orthotypography has a lot of differeces between languages. In Spanish we don't capitalize all words in titles, use romans for centuries, different rules for quotation marks, and a long etc. Nothing to do with catholicism that I'm aware of.

former s.XIX coastal battery fortress

Please could you tell the place? Menorca by chance?

Cap Rocat (https://www.caprocat.com), Mallorca. I was lucky and the hotel was still being build, so the party was relatively cheap. I knew the place from when it was still military and abandoned with empty ammunition cases lying around.

Now it's quite expensive as you have to rent all the rooms in the hotel to have a party. Even then is worth to visit it and have a coffee and see the arquitecture and views!

Glad you didn't let consideration for the rights and comfort of the people who live around you interfere with your need to party as you saw fit.

You had me up until "rights". Consideration (or lack thereof) for their comfort - and just for them as individuals- yes definitely.

For their rights? that's a lot less clear.

Well, in my country people do have the right to sleep unimpeded (between 10pm and 6am). One that is regularly enforced, actually, so it’s not just on the books.

Is that such an outlandish concept?

Interesting. Here in the States, that's usually a regulation at the municipal level if it exists at all. Even in that context, it's not defined as a right - just a law to be completed with.

Relatedly, does anyone know why so many bars with live acts crank the volume up so high that it becomes extremely loud white noise with thumping bass under it? It really sucks if you want to hear the music, and the point at which it's ears-ringing-the-next-day and clothes-vibrating loud but you can still at least tell when a key change happens is usually well under where they set it.

I love small venues, but I hate how bad the music sounds at so many of them. Does anyone actually prefer this?

At small venues it's often just because the band is playing loudly. Some drummers play pretty loudly, some guitarists play amps that sound better with the volume cranked, and then singers are going to want the vocals louder in the monitors so they can actually hear themselves over the loud drums & guitar.

If stage volume is loud, the sound guy is likely going to push the volume even louder, both so that he has some level of control over it, and because sound coming off the mains is going to sound a lot clearer than if you're hearing everything off the stage monitors and then reflected off the back wall (yes, even if that means things are louder, they can still be clearer).

Interesting. I find it hard to imagine that the reflected sound from the wall could be worse than the ear-against-tv-speaker-volume-at-full-tuned-to-static effect that ~2/3 of small venues I've been to end up with, but that does explain the motivation for it, at least.

Well, in most cases the stage volume is already in so-loud-you-lose-clarity territory, so the clarity you gain from the sound guy turning up the mains a bit is worth the clarity you lose due to the extra volume. We're not talking massive increases in volume here.

I have a few theories:

- The people deciding already have significant hearing loss and don't realize

- People who are into venue sound stuff tend to like music very very loud

- The majority of customers are actually relieved not to have the burden of needing to carry on a conversation (b/c doing so is impossible).

Not sure which of the above it is. A similar mystery is why it's considered OK for motorcycles to be extremely loud, even with modified mufflers designed to make them louder. I don't buy the safety argument, since the same could apply to any motor vehicle or pedestrian.

>does anyone know why so many bars with live acts crank the volume up //

I'm going to go with the roadie who did the sound check is hard of hearing through standing next to big speakers and using loud music on in-ear phones; they set the level and then boost it to allow for the crowd.

Some people don't like to listen to music they like to feel it - if it's not giving you the disturbing feeling you're having palpitations then it's not loud enough! Discos for the deaf are like this apparently.

In England this is part of the "Vertical Drinking Establishment".

You reduce the numbers of chairs and tables. That means that you fit more people in and they have to hold their drinks. Holding a drink means you drink it quicker. They turn up the volume so you chat less, which also means you drink faster.

They do it on purpose. The less patrons talk to each other the more alcohol they drink. That's why the music volume is increased as the night progresses. They get them into the establishment, customers start drinking, eventually it gets to a point where they can't hear each other so they just focus on drinking. Not all places do this, just the places that are strongly focused on the profits.

Why would such a bar have any repeat customers? The music is loud at a bar because the people are loud because the bar is crowded.

If bars wanted to sell more drinks, they would have more bartenders to reduce the wait times.

There you go: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2008/jul/19/medicalresear...

It mainly happens in busy city bars/pubs, where repeat customers aren't so important.

My personal theory is privacy. With a crashing din of music, your voice carries about 1-2 feet, which makes it easy to ensure only the right person or people hear you talking.

It allows you to be in a social setting while keeping your conversation private.

I recently saw this pop by in the news: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20080718/l... -- the bottom line is either what you suggest, or that loud music intrinsically motivates drinking. The authors don't know.

Thanks. I get the feeling that loud music + yelling = increase in adrenaline = drinking more. I also like the privacy angle and perhaps stressed out vocal cords = more soothing drink. I figured it had to be "sales" related since socially, it made no sense (also bias the fact that I am old :-)

A different perspective from some of the siblings: it keeps conversations fairly localized and thus a bit private. Beyond a few feet, and even with shouting it will distort and muffle the actual contents of speech in my experience.

It's the same reason most bars are set up to be cramped spaces, it forces people to be closer together which makes people uncomfortable which makes them drink more.

They are cramped because a lot of people want to be there. If people were uncomfortable they would stop going.

I agree it's not intuitive and obviously bars taking advantage of this trick need to actually have the foot traffic. Volume (as in volume of business) based bars are specifically designed to get more people closer together. Next time you are at one ask yourself if they are being the most efficient with the space.

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