Kudos for soliciting input from peers before investing in gear. I've read all the current posts in the thread, and I would like to point out that some of your statements indicate your experience on the live audio side of things may be less than you fully realize. I don't imagine good results when planing to do a 600-800 person gig with a few Yamaha Club cabinets. I think you should spend some time at gigs in your area, of similar size and genre as the acts you want to provide for, and get a feel for what your competitors are deploying. I think you'll soon decide that your budget needs to increase 4x - 10x!Though I have several years of experience in the field, I want additional input before spending the money.
I see in other posts that you are considering various digital consoles, but already own these Mackie VLZs. These are not acceptable consoles for any gig with a Band Engineer involved, and IMO not acceptable for much of anything, given the limited 3-band EQ. If you aren't using them, I suggest you sell them and recover some of your investment.
The 01V/LS9 suggestions are good. Keep in mind that the LS9 does not have VCA/DCAs while the 01V does (product positioning) however the LS9 has more buses. If an LS9 32 is not within your budget, you should probably make sure your employer has realistic expectations of what sort of customers/jobs they can get with this investment in gear, before they make purchases. You might be cross-renting a console a lot. With that said, all of these models have good resale value, and you won't take a big loss if you buy one, find they do not quite suit your business need, and need to sell it and upgrade.
It sounds like your business need is for entry-level, rider-friendly mic kit. I would avoid spending extra money on things like Beta57A until you have enough of the standard-bearers, e.g. SM57 and drum mics.Sure BETA57a (4)
Thinking that you won't need to mic "anything metal" for 800 guest gigs is a plan to fail. Not only will many customers insist on drum overheads or a few good mics around the drum kit (in addition to HH, which you covered) you will find it necessary to supply these mics whether or not they are needed in the mix for a particular event. If the rider / input list calls for drum overheads, you generally don't say to the tour, "can we strike the overheads since the venue is small?" You just supply them and let the tour's FoH guy decide if he needs to use them or not.
As far as drum mics go, IMO you can't go wrong with typical Shure or Audix mic kit. You will sometimes have to rent (or just buy) something different to satisfy a customer, but most customers are going to ask for common mics, or they will be carrying their own.
If you think you need this, I again urge you to reconsider how much experience you have gained recently. If you aren't confident in your ability to notch out feedback from wedges/room on your own, practice! Keep in mind that most feedback comes from the wedges, not the PA. So one AFS unit on your PA sends won't really do much of anything except put a crappy computer-guessed EQ curve on it.dbx Advanced Feedback Suppressor
Again, to do 800 guest events, you will need much more than what has been discussed so far. Check out some nearby gigs, look at what competitors are deploying at similar gigs to the ones your employer wants to bid on, and get a realistic feel for what you need to own. I wouldn't use Yamaha Club 15s for anything, as they just don't sound that good; but they will not be useful for much more than a 100-200 capacity bar, anyway.Heads/Amplification
Speaker Cabinets
You will need good wedges to work with touring acts, too. It isn't necessary to spend $2000/wedge but if you aren't spending at least $500, you can pretty much count on a good fraction of your artists being upset enough to remember your company provided them with junky wedges, which would not be good! I use JBL MRX512M at about $500ea and these are the cheapest wedges I find are worth owning. If I was doing more work with touring artists I'd spend $1000/wedge.
Also, you'll need some sort of drum monitor/sidefill/texas headphones rig. A decent 2x15 is IMO the best choice for smaller operations. I use JBL MRX525 and TR225 pretty much interchangeably for this, and at my level, I never get complaints about either box, even though the TR225 is pretty unpleasant as a PA cabinet. Here is a link to my opinion as to why selecting a drum monitor is really pretty different than a wedge for a singer: PSW Sound Reinforcement Forums: LAB Lounge => JBL SRX700 vs. PRX600
Don't use any "power conditioners" on your amplifiers, the same way you wouldn't use them on your dimmer racks. Do buy something for your consoles and outboard gear, the same way as you probably own some kind of surge protection for your light consoles. Note that the sub-$100 Furman units are no better than $30 RadioShack power strips, and this is also true of all the Monster Power products (at least up to the $500 level.) An online UPS that puts out a true sine wave from a motor/inverter is a well-liked setup but is bulkier and more expensive than sub-$100 Furmans. SurgeX is often cited as the best manufacturer of surge protection devices for our industry. Their technology is not the same as $30 RadioShack strips; but I believe a similar technology is used in the mid-range Furman stuff.Power Conditioning
One final comment: don't bet your job on this! So far, it appears that your budget is far, far too low to do the 800 guest gigs you indicate you are interested in. If your bosses watch you invest their money in audio gear and it doesn't produce the ROI they expect, it may be bad for you! Be sure that you all have realistic expectations.
And don't bet your job on anything cheap like a Mackie mixer. In my day-job, there is a phrase: "nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco" (routers and switches.) If you are going to cut a corner to conserve costs, be sure your bosses know and agree!