I'm not gonna pretend to be able to answer this with any degree of expert, cause I only attend small shows anymore...but I once was third row at a large show and the sound system was really a good sound system suspended left and right so that the speaker stacks were above, but not all the way up on the ceiling. I was probably only 12 yards from the left speaker stack. What I found was that the sound was still very clean up that close and didn't blow my ears out, but the bass was REALLY, and I mean REALLY overpowering for the rig. I would have pulled a perfect recording, but the sound pressure from the bass caused the recording to go over the top.