It just occurred to me when I saw a band on tour go from Connecticut on the 20th to South Carolina today the 29th while playing at various venues between the two states.
Like logistically it’s insane to me plus how are the singers voices not burnt?
12 hours later: Thanks everyone! Absolutely fascinating for sure, especially the Wendover YouTube links. Didn’t know that channel existed.
In: 344
I work in venue management, here’s a break down of a typical semi truck day for us:
9 AM: Stage Manager (SM) and Production Manager (PM) on site to open the venue and prepare for artist venue access (setting up green rooms, setting stage with stage hands, etc)
9:30 AM: House audio and lighting arrive to power on lighting rig and PA system, tour has venue access around this time, and a brief meeting between the PM, SM, and Tour manager (TM) occurs.
10 AM: Semi truck backs up to venue, load in begins, additional loaders arrive if needed, it takes on average two hours to empty a whole trailer and begin staging cases and any lighting ground package to be built (the time to empty the trailer is variable, depending on what’s coming off and if there’s any maneuvering of set pieces and cases that needs to occur)
12 PM: Headliner build, all the staging and set pieces are constructed, backline is assembled and mics are set and cabling is run, typically the build will take around 2 hours as well, by this point, stage hands are cut and sent home, and only a few stay all day, this time likely also includes the line check, which is just a simple run through of all mics and DI lines to make sure everything is patched correctly
2 PM: Crew lunch
3 PM: Headliner soundcheck
4 PM: Support arrival, load in, and build. Typically this is just loading in support backline. Audio and lights are typically done entirely by the house, or at least on house equipment.
5 PM: Support soundcheck, during this time SM will deliver any alcohol catering to the green rooms, and make copies of the tour pass sheet to distribute to security, SM also gathers artists guest list for the box office, and distributes schedules to all venue staff
6 PM: Crew dinner, SM and TM meet with house manager and security manager for a security meeting to discuss any specific security concerns, as well as briefing the TM on house security procedure and emergency plans
7 PM: Doors open to the public
8 PM: SM ensures house crew is in position and signals the lighting designer to kill house lights and front of house to kill house music, support takes the stage and plays their set, can be anywhere from 30 mins to one hour (we’ll just say an hour here)
9 PM: Changeover, support is broken down and loaded off stage, this happens very quickly and house crew will typically just strip all mics and cabling quickly and get them off stage, and store everything properly once the support is fully off stage, this is a limited time window, typically 30 mins, and going over is never ideal
9:30 PM: Headliner plays their set, typically 90 mins to two hours in length
11:30 PM: Headliner finishes their set, crew begins breaking down the stage, every road case is repacked, and the TM will eventually call the truck driver (who has been asleep since they parked the truck after load in) to bring the truck back to the loading area. Load outs go significantly faster than load ins, and a good rule of thumb that I always apply is that the out should be about half as long as the in, but shorter if possible. During this time, the TM settles with the house manager so the tour gets their share of the money from the show, plus any expenses they have to pay to the venue are calculated here as well to get the final numbers.
1:30 AM: Tour is packed up, and the crew and artists return to their bus (sometimes only the crew travels on buses, and the artists are taken to the airport by car to fly to the next location). Depending on the tour schedule, the bus will be on the road within the hour, and the driver has to get as far as possible within the time that they are legally able to drive without a required break. All dates in the tour are planned around the drive time between venues, and tours typically get off days when they have a long distance between your stops.
The whole thing has to basically be put together in under 12 hours, and then it all comes down in a fraction of the time, routes are meticulously planned since commercial bus and truck drivers have time limits on how long they can drive. On top of that, some tours end up with festival dates in the middle of standard tour dates, and this can mean that the artist and the main crew (front of house engineer, monitors engineer, lighting designer, and tour manager) will fly to the festival, and rent all their backline and even consoles if needed and run a very stripped down version of the show.
It all comes down to a small group of people making sure that everything happens on time each and every day, because any delay pushes everything back, and just makes far more stress. That’s not to say every show day is flawless, technical issues occur and can put everyone in a bit of a crunch, but as long as the show starts on time, and the load out doesn’t take more than four hours, everyone is happy at the end.
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