Karyn
When I started doing FOH for our annual bike club rally one of my jobs was to collate info beforehand regarding noise levels for submission to the local council as part of our entertainment license.
 
It seems there are accepted levels for various events that impact on audience enjoyment.
for Live performances from rock/pop bands your looking in the region of 98 - 103 dbA in the audience.
Much below that and you loose that "live something" that sets apart a live performance from simply playing back a recording, even if it's a live recording.
 
of course, much above that and the audience starts backing away....  Which is where the rear fills kick in and push them back to the front again

Don't know if you ever saw it Karyn but years ago there was a documentary on TV in the UK (or was it a news report? Can't remember...) about noise levels in clubs. They had an expert go into some of the bigger dance clubs and measure sound levels. I seem to remember him walking out after a couple of minutes in disgust saying that the levels were so ridiculously high that you'd likely suffer permanent hearing damage after about 20 minutes. I think part of the problem with nightlife like gigs and clubs is that people get drunk and/or high and they really have no judgment. Back in those early UK raves, especially the "illegal" ones, we never once stopped to think if it was too loud - the louder the better. There is definitely a fine line between exciting and dangerous. Being at a gig which is loud enough to be exciting while not feeling dangerous or uncomfortable is absolute bliss, and I applaud any technician who knows what that level is! 

sharke
There is definitely a fine line between exciting and dangerous. Being at a gig which is loud enough to be exciting while not feeling dangerous or uncomfortable is absolute bliss, and I applaud any technician who knows what that level is! 

As any good eng should,  I use a level meter. I aim for about 100dbA,  then I enable a hard limiter on the desk output, mainly to catch the occasional snare or cymbal hit.

I should say, that's 100dbA at my mixing position.  It'll obviously be louder than that closer to the stage.

I went to an arena concert about 30 years ago and Rush was playing. I thought it was loud, too loud, and went down to see the engineers and gawk at the equipment. They had a meter on the main console and it was showing 30db. This was obviously wrong so I screamed at one of the guys and asked how loud the mix was. He reached over and picked up his smokes on the console, at which time he uncovered the meter, and the hidden 1 on the display. The meter was reading 130db.
 
Working in the steel industry for 25 years I heard explosions, train wrecks and steam whistles. Nothing was as loud as Rush. I've never been back to an arena concert since then and never will. Now if only they could do something about the THX systems at the movies.

ampfixer
Now if only they could do something about the THX systems at the movies.

Oddly, motion picture exhibition is the only place where loudness has been standardized, and has been for decades. The K-system is based on it. There, I believe the perception of being too loud is a result of over-compression rather than absolute levels, just as it has become with television and music recordings.
 
I think I'll take along my SPL meter the next time I'm at the movies and test that theory. I just hope they don't kick me out thinking it's a recording device.

I love going to see all the Marvel action hero movies with my kid. When I'm sitting there it's a sonic assault. The volume seems to be a big part of making the audience tense at the right times. 
 
Remember the scene in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex shows up? All you get is the low frequency thump while the camera looks at the ripples in a puddle caused by the dino footsteps. If you had opened your cup of soda in the theatre you likely would have seen the same ripples. Great blend of sound and vision to enhance the experience.

Unless the band's performance is tight, the backline gear, FB and FOH is completely under expert control and the paradigm of placing FOH down at front of stage (positioned far L/R)  --- then the whole shebang will typically sound like having one's head stuck inside a wooly boom-box...

||: Boom Boom Boom :|| rpt.
 
Hey, here's a novel idea: Wireless earbuds marked with the band's name and contact (factored into the cost of admission), yes, they can keep the darn things as a memento   
 
 

 

bitflipper
So what I'm hearing is an affirmation of what I'd always assumed: it's about acoustics #1, FOH talent #2 and gear #3.
 
IOW, you can't buy your way out of the dilemma, just like you can't buy your way to quality in the studio.

#4 Your bad luck and/or knowledge of the space.
 
Even in relatively good rooms/spaces there can be spots where nothing can save the sound. Helsinki Olympic Stadium is a fully open stadium except for a roof on one side. Under that roof the sound is awfull bass mush no matter what. The higher up your seat is, the worse. Same thing in one of the acoustically best halls around here, there are a few rows where you never get good sound.
 
My great live sound quality experience was Frank Zappas concert waayyy back then. They were using Yamaha sound gear. I had not known that live sound can be so good.

An open stadium in Finland? Doesn't it get pretty cold there? Even here in balmy Seattle (it's about 60F/15C here ATM) our stadium has a roof, albeit a retractable one just in case the rain ever stops.
 
Before that stadium was built, we had a concrete monstrosity called the Kingdome. It had a concave roof that guaranteed the worst possible acoustics. Probably much like your Olympic Stadium except that bad sound was uniformly delivered to every seat, not just to an unfortunate few. Being the largest facility around, it was a frequent concert venue but I rarely attended performances there because everybody who played there sounded awful. I cheered the day they imploded it.
 
I've also played clubs that seemed to have been purposefully designed for maximum acoustical damage. One was a long, narrow space with a low ceiling. That would have been bad enough, but then they situated the stage midway down the long room, facing the short dimension. And they didn't stop there. They lined one whole wall - directly opposite the stage - with mirrors.  Everything that came out of the PA bounced straight back at the band 70 milliseconds later. We'd have to toe-in the PA speakers but although that helped with feedback it did nothing to clear up bass frequencies. 
 
I am generally disgusted by the lack of attention to acoustics in public spaces. I've been to restaurants where you couldn't understand the person sitting across the table. Customers don't linger in spaces like that, which means the business loses out on lucrative after-dinner cocktails. They could have made back the expense of acoustical treatments in a couple of weeks.
 
There is a museum here called the Experience Music Project, which features a performance stage. Despite being commissioned by a musician, it was designed by a world-renowned architect for maximum visual impact - and zero consideration for acoustics. It sounds dreadful. Such irony, that a place dedicated to music history, that has hosted the most amazing players of our times, sounds like a brick-lined back alley. Actually, a brick-lined alley would probably sound better. At least you'd get a little high-frequency diffusion from the bricks.

Just another opinion for the mix, but I'm forever perplexed at how frequently I'm disappointed with the sound of a live mix.  And I've heard both good and bad in the same acoustical environment using high power, high bandwidth, high fidelity gear.  I'm personally convinced it has almost everything, or at least a great deal, to do with FOH listening and mixing talent.  Granted, some rooms are just awful, but I believe folks who mix FOH well are simply very good listeners and are musical listeners and they know how to translate what they are hearing into what they want to be hearing.  I hear those mixes and I'm just so grateful that the FOH guy is so tuned in.  My 2p.
 
Also, what you said about restaurants, there are some I won't even go into anymore because of the horrible acoustics - polished concrete floors, steel roofing, brick walls...   sorry, what was that?   Aaarggh!