I have a couple suggestions:
First, the amps are probably best on the
stage. Two reasons here: One, since the
current and
voltage of
line level audio (what comes out of your
mixer) is low, there's really not much signal loss in
line level cables due to the resistance of the cable. After that signal is amplified by the
power amplifier, the
current and
voltage are high enough for the resistance of the cable to have a
effect in longer cables.
For instance, if it's 200 feet from your booth to the
speaker and you ran 14
gauge wire, you would lose 1.02dB just from the
wire. Your 500W amp suddenly becomes a 395W amp!
Granted, 1dB isn't a lot (you probably couldn't hear the difference), but it's a loss you could avoid.
Two,
microphone cable is much cheaper than
speaker cable. 200 feet of mic cable (Belden 8451) would be $46, but 200 feet of 14
gauge speaker cable (West Penn 266) would be $80, basically twice the cost.
My other suggestion is to draw a
line diagram of your sound
system. You could download a student version of AutoCAD and draw it in that, however, a neat
hand drafted copy would work as well. Generally, you want to start with the inputs on the left side of the drawing and work your way through the
system, using lines a single
line for each
wire and boxes for each device. I've attached a very basic example I threw together in MS Paint.
Then post that, and we can take a look - it'll help you understand what is going on in your sound
system and it'll help us better than a simple list of equipment.