Protect your pedalboard connections from destructive feet

[Marshall Arts]

Playing on small events or in tiny rehearsal rooms comes with a problem: People can trip over the jacks and destroy them. The problem does not occur so much on a stage, where the back side of your pedal board is usually facing the edge of the stage.
Here is a picture of my patch bay that shows the problem:


I was searching for a commercial solution, but it seems, that all patch bays/connectors for pedalboards ignore that problem.

So, here is my approach: I flipped the patch bay by 180 degrees and made a cutout on the side of the pedalboard for the multicore (4-cable-method) and the guitar cable. I will later use 3D-printed parts to fix the multicore in the slot.





I know that my board is somehow special, but maybe this setup does inspire you guys.... Any other ideas welcome.

[EBK]

I played a gig once where our singer kept stepping on the plug coming from the last output jack of my pedal board.  Kept making a horrible popping sound.  I ended up taking the last pedal out of the chain during a break between songs to fix it.

[Muadzin]

I played a gig once where our singer kept stepping on the plug coming from the last output jack of my pedal board.  Kept making a horrible popping sound.  I ended up taking the last pedal out of the chain during a break between songs to fix it.

Hitting him on the head with that pedal might have done the trick too.

I prefer my patchbays to be on the side of the pedalboard that is facing the edge of the stage. So if I play on the left of the stage, my connections are on the left side of the board, away from excited singers and myself dancing around on stage.

[Marshall Arts]

Actually a good idea to have jacks on both sides (and still far enough away from the power supply), so you can choose depending on the stage setup.

[gordo]

Luckily I have the stage moves of a sloth so no worries.