On Saturday, May 9, 2026, youth groups from all over the Black Hills met on the field behind Calvary Baptist Church in Rapid City for UNITE Black Hills Spring 2026. We ran the audio. Here's what UNITE is, how we set it up, and what we'd tell anyone planning an outdoor worship night like it.
What is UNITE Black Hills?
UNITE Black Hills is a free gathering of youth ministries, churches, pastors, youth leaders, and teenagers from across the Black Hills. Groups that usually meet on their own come together for one night to connect, serve, and worship as one church. It happens in the spring and the fall, and the host church changes from one event to the next.
The spring 2026 night ran from 5 to 7 PM, and the invitation was simple: a color war, time to connect with students from other youth groups, and worship. Somewhere around 150 to 200 students and leaders showed up.
How was the stage and sound set up?
The stage was a covered trailer stage we rented from the Black Hills Bluegrass Festival. It rolled onto the grass, leveled out, and gave the band a roof and a raised deck in the middle of an open field. We ran power from the church building, so there was no generator noise behind the worship set.
Two powered speakers on stands flanked the stage and covered the crowd. With a couple hundred people spread across open grass, there are no walls to help you, so where the speakers sit and which way they point does most of the work.
Why mix from the van?
We mixed on a Behringer X32 set up inside our van, parked right beside the stage. It put the console under a roof, which mattered because it rained a little before the event. It also kept the board and the laptop dry and out of the way of a field full of students. Once the rain moved through, it was smooth sailing.
How do you mix a worship set and a speaker on the same stage?
The night had two halves: a worship set and a message. The band had vocals, acoustic guitar, keys, and drums. For worship, the job is to keep the vocals clear and on top so the room can sing along, with the instruments supporting them rather than burying them. Outdoors, there's no reverb from a room to glue things together, so a clean, simple mix sounds best.
For the message, everything changes. The speaker wore a headset mic, which stays the same distance from the mouth no matter where the speaker moves and gives a lot more volume before feedback than a handheld or a podium mic. We set it so every word carried to the back of the crowd without sounding loud up front, and we planned the switch from band to speaker ahead of time so there was no awkward gap or feedback squeal in between.
What should you plan for at an outdoor youth worship night?
- Know where your power comes from. A building outlet is quieter than a generator, but you need to know the distance and the circuit before the day.
- Have a rain plan for the console and the stage. A covered stage and a mix position under a roof let you keep going when a shower rolls through.
- Plan the handoff between worship and the message, including who's on which mic and when, so the transition feels intentional.
- Give your speaker a headset mic if they move around. It sounds better and gives you more headroom outdoors.
- If you mix from beside the stage, walk out to the back of the crowd and listen. What sounds right at the stage isn't always what carries to the back.
Planning a youth night, a worship night, or an outdoor church event in the Black Hills? Tell us the site and the program, and we'll help you work out the sound, the stage, and the power.