We leave our dimmers on always. Also on occasion, the production PCs, when we intend to remote in and work on them from home. Other than that, nothing.
Dionysus, nailed the amp issues that I would be concerned with. Turning off the
console/source before the amps can't be good.....especially repeating it over and over nightly. That plus dirt buildup, would risk shortening the life of an amp more than powering it on and off
IMO. Amps were designed to
power up and down. I don't know of any amps that advertise specs of 24/7 operation, like a server hard drive. The potential damage to local
electric from inrush could be dealt with by powering each amp individually or through a sequential
line conditioner/protector. Many "full featured" amps have their own built in
power up/down cycle that they are designed to go through. Not following the recommended process and removing
power regularly, could possibly void the warranty.....if it could be proved.
For multi-day events in large venues, I have seen large production companies leave lots of equipment on, such as consoles, processors, light fixtures and rack arrays. I get the convenience of it when during the daytime they rehearse and tweak & then follow with the night event... and then hit it again early in the morning. They
power it all down when they leave to move back to the shop, or onto another
venue. Some differences to note between them and my situation is that they are not responsible for the
power bill of the
venue in most cases and I am somewhat accountable to mine at a permanent
venue. Also, with the larger
road companies, their equipment turnover tends to be more regular and sometimes preventive and in my
venue, we don't have budgets to support that and are not trying to compete/be attractive to clients through our equipment offering. Not saying everyone is like this, but you have the difference of an owner vs. an employee playing a factor in equipment care. Some guys may take the convenience factor because it isn't their equipment and that is all that effects them.......until an amp crashes during an event.