So you've said you will do a gig; but it's slightly different to most things you have done in the past. No enthusiastic drummer or guitarist that want's everything on 11. Instead a group of people assemble on a stage and sing together. But how do you go about micing them and making them sound good?

Option 1) Give them all an SM58 and get a rent a 50 channel mixer. Well, not entirley practical eh?

Popular, Common sense Option 2) Use some sort of condenser mics to create a coverage of the group.

So there's a diagram and a half! Thankgoodness for auto shapes in photoshop.. anyway back to microphones. 

Here's an example that shows you how to idealy mic a choir or group. This is with an equal spread of tones of voices, a fairly equal volume coming from each voice, and no other external noises - such as other instruments or organs.

If there was a small group of male voices and a larger group of female voices, I would suggest putting one or two mics closer to the male voices and then a larger spread over the female voices. This would give me more control over the final mix.

There's a little rule to do with spacing the microphones. This helps to reduce cancelation of the signal. (something for another time). If you stick to a rule of 3:1 with the spacing, you should avoid most problems. That is; 1 foot away from the singer, and 3 foot between the microphones. Like this...

Hope I've made some sense! I may update in more detail soon.