Help desperately need for elementary school
Apologies in advance, I am a total NOOB about sound and am looking for basic help here. I volunteer at an inner city elementary school that has very limited resources and a tiny budget. I create a show for acting, live singing W/ backing tracks and live musicians for the children ages 8-12 to perform. We rent the equipment and everyone works for free to pull it off. It is in the large double gym. Last year we had a 16x16 temporary stage built for the acting portion of the show. The sound was great speaker wise EXCEPT you still couldn’t hear the child actors very well. Getting them to project is a challenge and mic pacs are not an option. We used 4 shotgun mics at the 4 corners of the stage. I was told we had to use shot gun mics due to feedback issues of the gym. Wouldn’t Omni directional work better? Is that not possible? Should we also be having pencil mics or more mics? Can someone help me understand and create a better sound design for these kids? These children and the community really deserve the best and I could really use your expertise in figuring out a better way. TIA