Do any of you know of a good system for speakers at events? Here's the requirements:

- Portable - enough so that a 60 year old lady could carry it out of a car
- wireless mic if possible, okay if not
- hopefully under $500

Is there anything like this?

Millions of them. Walk into any Guitar Center and try a few out.

Example:
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Nady-WA-120-...411-i1127212.gc

By the way, the Google search phrase you want is:

Portable Wireless PA

You'll notice that some have lav mics and some have handheld mics.

Nice! Thanks Tony! I was asking for somone else, so I don't know exactly what they'll need, but this is certainly where they'll want to start.

It interesting. Amazon seems to have two levels of these systems. They have little 40-80 Watt units but also these Pyle systems that range from around 500-800 Watts. But the low end Pyles are close to the price of the low wattage units. Any idea what's up with that?

I don't use this, but my wife has one for teaching her Zumba class - so obviously I have tested it with my guitar.

She has the 350 Watt one, and it is pretty punchy. It has a 4 channel desk built in with mic pre-amps, as well as line level inputs. It has some basic reverb and effects, and above all it is very portable.

http://altoproaudio.com/products/mixpack-express

As with all musical gear, you will find a wide range of price and quality at every power level and size level. I don't have particular experience with these types of units, though, so I don't know what features and quality points to be looking at.

From the quick glance at that link, this is just a portable multichannel PA. The original request was for a portable PA with an included wireless microphone.

This brings up a good point, though: You can definitely add any wireless microphone to any PA system. So it's certainly not out of the question to shop for them as separate components. If you buy them as separate components, then if one of them fails or if you want to increase its quality, then you only have to replace one of them instead of replacing the whole thing.