1:00 AM - Bus Call
The halls of this venue have a story to them that spans many chapters. It’s an old place but not dilapidated. To the contrary, it is preserved in a way where artists who are always picky about their surroundings - loathe to remain anywhere if the vibe or aura is bad - appreciate it. They doubly appreciated the old vinyl record player in the star dressing room. And they triply appreciated the strength and warmth of the dressing room showers. I did too, for if the showers wouldn’t get warm, I’d be forced to quickly acquire rooms at a nearby upscale hotel and argue with the promoter about why this would be categorized as a show cost and not come out of the artist backend. On top of that, I’d need to get them there without any of their more enthusiastic fans finding out about it.
I conduct a standard dummy check. In the rooms one of the artists was occupying I find some sort of hideous designer sunglasses that probably cost more than my life. In the crew room, I find a stray sock. The runner notifies me that he has returned, late, with the after show food and the hospitality manager confirms over radio that she has received it and will take it onto the artist bus where they are crankily awaiting their pizza and hot dogs.
“Until next time,” I say, extending my hand to the venue’s production manager.
“Until next time,” he says then points to the door. “I’m good to bring security back in?”
Together, we peek out from the stage door. There’s still around fifty fans out there even though the artists retreated to their tour bus a good thirty minutes prior. But now both tour buses are revved up and ready to depart. I shoulder my backpack and walk toward them.
“IT’S TIME TO GO HOME!” I shout to the crowd. “THANK YOU FOR COMING BUT MOVE BACK PLEASE!”
Inside the bus, it is relatively quiet. Everyone is tired so the front lounge is empty and the lights in bunk alley are already off.
“We’re a bus,” I tell Corey, our driver, a whole two minutes before our actual bus call. That means that everyone who is supposed to be on the bus is present and we’re all set to leave. “And they’re a bus,” I say, referring to the artist bus.
In front of us, the security moves the barricades aside to let our vehicles out of the compound. As we start to move, fans bang on the side of the bus and hold up their signs. A woman with particularly large breasts has the signature of one of the artists on it. Not an unusual occurrence. But before long we’re back on the highway making a rather scenic (should you ever do it during the daytime) drive down the California coast. Tomorrow is a big one. Our show in Los Angeles.
I open up Master Tour and click on the next date of our tour schedule. There’s a whole tab for hotels with a built-in button that connects me right to the front desk. This call is the official beginning of my day.
The thing with bus touring is while most everyone essentially lives on the bus, during the day the bus drivers head over to a local hotel to sleep. The issue is that most hotel check-in times are not until three or four in the afternoon and I need my rooms some significant amount of hours earlier than that. Not getting the drivers into their rooms by a certain time means our departure from that city can be delayed due to various DOT regulations regarding rest time. It is also the easiest way to make your bus drivers upset but it’s not without good reason. Depriving a tour’s bus or truck drivers of sleep is the best way to put your entire tour party at risk. You don’t want anyone dozing off at the wheel.
The easiest way to get around this issue is to book the rooms from the night before. But doing that every city adds up after a while. So most of the time the gamble is taken. Book the room for just one night and call the hotel that day to sweet talk them into checking in as early as humanly possible. Los Angeles is not a city where I take that gamble so tonight I’m calling the hotel to once again relay the information that even though the driver check-in is tonight, they won’t be arriving at the hotel until late in the morning the following day. If you don’t do that, the night auditor will mark your room as a “no show” and your drivers will show up at the hotel to find themselves faced with canceled reservations. That’s the type of mistake you only make once!
Show Cost = Money budgeted within the financial deal for the show that will be absorbed by the promoter.
Artist Backend = Extra expenses deducted directly from the artist cut at the end of the night.
Runner = Person hired for the day to drive, or literally run, to wherever you need them to go. This usually includes food pick-ups, dry cleaning, or emergency trips to the hardware store.
After Show Food = Food you eat after the show. Typically late at night. Usually pizza, Chinese food, or any other place likely to be open late in any given city.
Front Lounge = The front section of a tour bus that contains couches, a TV, a mini kitchen, and the bus bathroom.
Bunk Alley = The middle section of a tour bus where everyone sleeps.
Bus Call = The time the bus departs to go to the next city. The most important item on the tour schedule. To miss bus call is to miss your ride which means you need to make it to the next show on your own or potentially lose your job.
Master Tour = A phone app that houses the schedule and other vital information for your tour that everyone on the road with you can access to make sure everyone is on the same page.
8:00 AM - Venue Access
As we pull into the venue, I’m situated in the passenger seat directing our bus driver to our spot indicated on the map we were given in advance. By the time we come to a stop, the hospitality manager has sleepily emerged from bunk alley.
Outside the bus, our venue contact is already waiting. He takes us inside for our morning walkthrough looking at the stage, the dressing rooms, and the lobby. Out front, fans are camped out in tents. One screams when she notices us.
Our production setup for this particular show is fairly theatrical, but the space on this stage is plentiful enough I have no immediate concerns that would cause me to go back to the bus and drag the production manager out of bed early.
Together with the hospitality manager, I assign rooms for the day: Artist rooms, crew rooms, catering, any extra showers, and places for backstage guests to not get in anyone’s way. Simultaneously we meet the day’s runner to send her out to make sure breakfast gets to the venue on time. Before long, the backstage hallways are looking a lot like our typical temporary home for the day.
10:00 AM - Load In
After breakfast and going over notes, Jenny (the production manager for this run) is ready to do her thing. Our trucks are pulled into the docks and both our touring and local crew are ready to start the push. This is when I retreat to our production office for the day to start thinking ahead. The artist guest list is on top of mind. Being in Los Angeles, this is where the exception to most rules happen, where we have an entire hierarchy of guests that get different things. Who will come in through the public entrance? Whose names will be added to the stage door list to come in through the back because of celebrity or familial status? Where are they all going to sit for the show? We have too many production elements to keep people side stage so a private booth with an easy pathway to and from the green rooms is what I’m looking at with the venue manager. And oh yeah, there’s a whole afterparty today at a nearby nightclub where working with the promoter has been a royal pain in my ass.
I pause to make sure there are no issues with lunch arriving on time before taking a call with the venue we’ll be performing in three weeks down the line. On other shows I’ve done, the production manager would handle this call, but I know all the things Jenny needs to know so can cover for her while she builds the stage. In my email I’m getting communication from Rock-It Cargo, the company that’s going to help me get our entire stage setup from the United States into Mexico and eventually Brazil and a few other countries in South America six weeks down the line then Europe and Asia beyond that. I’m reaching out to the home office about a payroll issue our lighting designer woke up pissed about that morning. It’ll be handled by dinner time. And I get a lovely email from a hotel the full tour group stayed in recently because I’ve stayed there enough times I’m fairly good acquaintances with the hotel manager.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, the artists rise from their slumber and make their way inside. Our hospitality manager has already made sure the rooms are set up in a way they’d be satisfied with which usually involves adjusting temperatures, turning off overhead fluorescent lights and putting in softer mood lighting, making sure the venue’s hospitality manager has brought everything on the artist rider, and triple checking to ensure all the signs we taped to the walls earlier are dummy proof enough so that even once we walk each artist to their dressing rooms, they won’t be confused about their whereabouts.
Today, they’re in a good mood if not a little stressed because of the larger venue size than in other cities. Our first special guest of the day, a local massage therapist, arrives fifteen minutes early and we have him set up in his designated space just as the artists are finishing up their lunch. I check the stage out of habit. Jenny is out by FOH with a heavily concentrated look on her face, lights moving and changing color overhead. Music starts blasting through the venue’s audio system making the floor beneath my feet vibrate.
The stage looks good. The lights are on. The sound works. In my book, we have a show.
Push = The process of moving all production gear from the trucks into the venue. This could be a few feet if there is a loading dock, or it could be a street unload involving forklifts and rolling things around the block. Each day on tour is different!
FOH = Front of house position. This is a location out in the audience where the show’s lights and audio are controlled from.
Artist Rider = Stuff the artist needs in their green room. There are also production riders (stuff we need on the stage for the show to happen) and hotel riders (stuff we need in the hotels we stay in). The most annoying thing I’ve had listed on a rider is “Starbucks iced American on tap.”
4:00 PM - Soundcheck
The artist wanders onto the stage and looks out at the empty audience. In his hand is a microphone. In his ear is something called an in-ear monitor (IEM), a device that helps him ear himself and the music in the way that is most helpful for his performance. There are also stage monitors along the front of the stage blasting the same mix (combo of vocal and instrumental) in the event something goes wrong with the IEM. I linger on stage for a moment just to make sure nothing catastrophic happens right front the start before heading out to the lobby to have my security meeting with the venue.
A security meeting is essentially when you go over how the show is going to go. We go over the different pass types (all access passes, VIP passes, guest passes, backstage after show passes, etc.). We go over the path and security protocol for the pre-show artist meet and greet. I outline moments of the show the venue should be aware of.
“The artist won’t crowd surf,” I say, “but he will jump down behind the barricade and sign autographs.” I go over all the special effects that will happen: Confetti, smoke, haze, strobe lighting, wind machines, bubbles.
Lastly, I go over artist extraction. Usually, this just involves a security detail present to get the artist from the stage door to the bus with no incident, though this particular artist has a habit of always stopping to sign autographs, sometimes for up to an hour after each show. Because of today’s afterparty though, I outline the plan to instead get the artists into an SUV that will be taking them to the club.
“I want people to see him get into the car so they won’t keep swarming the buses,” I say. “But it’ll also need to be quick.”
From the venue, I get told their typical protocols for venue evacuations. Earthquake, fire, and active shooters. I confirm with the venue our finalized guest list.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s have a good show.”
7:00 PM - Doors
The dressing room doors are all closed. The artists are getting ready. We already have the high profile guests backstage and our hospitality manager is working her magic handling all that with grace and patience I don’t have the energy for. I’m on the phone with the asshole nightclub promoter who, to be fair, is being slightly less of an asshole now that tickets for the party have sold out. We go over the security procedure for getting the artist into the venue. We go over again what types of alcohol will be put in their private booth. We confirm the DJ gear getting delivered. From the current venue, I get a pre-settlement that I skim over to make sure nothing major pops out. Jenny spins in a chair on the other side of my desk complaining about one of the local stagehands and making sure we get more Red Bull for bus stock that night.
Out of sight from the crowd, I walk through the stage wings behind the curtains. Everything looks set. I look out the back by the buses, no trouble back there either. I return to the production office to take a few minutes to close my eyes.
Pre-Settlement = Preliminary settlement. A document that outlines the finances for the show. It will be updated with final numbers later in the night.
Bus Stock = Groceries and other items kept on the bus.
8:00 PM - Show
It’s loud. The type of loud that rumbles in your ribcage as the intro video plays on the towering video wall. The lights are going crazy, low laying fog fills the stage like a graveyard. The artists stand before me in clothes that would look ridiculous on a regular person but a mixture of charisma and being conventionally attractive lets them get away with it. A hydraulic lift will reveal them to the audience before they dramatically saunter down glowing steps and begin their set.
When they go out on stage, I keep an eye on the pit which is the space between the front of the stage and the barricade keeping the audience at bay. It’s not uncommon for people to pass out during the show or things like phones, bras, or condoms to be tossed on stage. Jenny is calling all the cues over headset, the other crew members executing the cues. I’m just an extra eye to have around to make sure no one dies and to communicate a full show stop if it seems like someone out in the audience is in danger of getting trampled to death or something goes very wrong backstage.
The show, thankfully, goes without any major incidents. The artists leave the stage after the encore looking positively wired, their good mood for the day maintaining. Backstage, I know the hospitality manager has made sure an ice bath has been prepared for one of the artists. Meanwhile, I move to make sure our backstage after show guests are the people they say they are.
10:00 PM - Load Out
As the stage is getting broken down and the nightclub is being prepared, I sit in the venue manager’s office for show settlement… also known as, the time we go over the show and determine who gets how much money. There are ticket sales and merch sales weighed against production, hospitality, marketing, and other operational costs. Tonight is a versus deal with a guarantee. That means that no matter how well the show did, there is a minimum amount of money the artist would get. But if a certain percentage of the net box office is higher than that guarantee, we go into overages which means we get more money. For this show - as with all shows on this sold out tour - we go way into overages. Lots of money. Unfortunately, the show cost so much to have on the road to begin with that the big paycheck has us only just breaking even once you consider the close to two million dollars spent to put the show on the road in the first place.
I sign on the settlement and send the numbers back to the record label before quickly packing my things. Jenny will wrap up clearing out the venue tonight. I needed to accompany the hospitality manager, artist managers, and the artists to the club.
12:00 AM - After Party
It is chaos. More booming music, everyone packed wall to wall, alcohol being guzzled, joints and cigarettes being smoked. I turn into extra security detail, hardly flinching in the face of all the flashing cameras. Despite being in the center of it all, I remain anonymous, just how it should be.
Once things settle down, I head out back to meet Jenny who has just made it to the club. We congratulate ourselves on another day conquered.
“I’m going to go get drunk,” she announces, and I follow her back inside.
3:00 AM - Bus Call
Upon returning to the venue, no stray fans are loitering by the buses and for the first time since the start of my day, things are relatively quiet. The hospitality manager informs me that the artist wants grilled cheese. I resist the urge to bang my head against the side of the bus. We hold bus call a whole twenty minutes so she can go get him grilled cheese from a twenty-four hour diner. Jenny pukes on the sidewalk.
Meanwhile, I sit in the front lounge, open up Master Tour, and call the next day’s hotel. They’re not sold out tonight.
“Great,” I say. “We’re on a concert tour and we have a show tomorrow at the venue down the street. These rooms are for our bus drivers who drive overnight and sleep during the day. Is it possible to block them into rooms that are currently empty so that they can check in early? It would be around ten in the morning. Yes. Thank you so much for understanding. I’ll call again in the morning to reconfirm.”
I eventually retreat to my bunk. The artist manager thanks me for today over text from the artist bus. How sweet. Like going back into the womb, I close the bus bunk curtain and within minutes I am lulled to sleep.