Hire roadies: The case for touring crew without tours
|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|
View this email in your browser (|ARCHIVE|) http://hotpodnews.com/presents.... The fine print of innovation in the music business. It’s Tuesday, September 15, 2020. Editor’s note: It’s Tuesday! Thanks so much to everyone who sent positive feedback on last week’s issue about Hipgnosis. I’ve linked to the story towards the bottom of the newsletter again, just in case.
The main story in today’s issue looks at a rather different part of the music industry: The on-the-ground tour managers and crew members who are still unemployed amidst the decimation of the live music sector, and hungry for work. I spoke with several veteran tour managers who make the case that their translatable skills in crisis management, logistics, communication, accounting and security are more important than ever, although translation issues remain as not many people outside the industry bubble understand the nature of their work.
Hope it’s an interesting read, and thanks again as always for subscribing!
- Cherie HIRE ROADIES: THE CASE FOR TOUR MANAGERS AND CREW WITHOUT TOURS
Story by Cherie Hu
The multibillion-dollar losses (https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/live-nation-revenue-concerts-q2-2020-1040181/) that the live events industry has faced so far this year have reverberated not just throughout the music industry, but also across the leisure and hospitality industries at large.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate for leisure and hospitality (https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04032241?amp%253bdata_tool=XGtable&output_view=data&include_graphs=true) jumped nearly eightfold between December 2019 and April 2020, from 5.0% to 39.3%. The most recent unemployment rate from August 2020 is 21.3%, still a fourfold increase from pre-pandemic levels for the sector and nearly three times the current national average (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf) of 8.4%.
In the context of concerts and touring, Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent Jordan Weissman reported (https://slate.com/business/2020/09/coronavirus-concerts-venues-save-our-stages-act.html) that 173 music venues and 187 theaters on Yelp closed down permanently between March 1 and Sept. 9 in the U.S. — which is “unquestionably a lowball assessment, since business owners who close their doors probably aren’t prioritizing the updating of their Yelp accounts,” in Weissman’s words.
When it comes to touring, it’s not just artists, venues, booking agents and tour managers that are affected. It’s also the merchandising companies, stage and lighting designers, food caterers, bus operators and instrument/gear rental stores that artists and event organizers rely on to run a smooth and enjoyable concert experience.
For today’s discussion, I spoke with several tour managers not just because they play a direct leadership role in making your favorite tours happen, but also because their suite of skills and experiences is both more needed than ever in this country and often misunderstood by employers outside the music-industry bubble.
Like many other players in the live music ecosystem, tour managers have struggled to get the proper government assistance to weather what will likely be at least another year without proper tours. In the words (https://www.adhoc.fm/post/reflections-of-a-tour-manager/) of Noamme Elisha — tour manager for the likes of Sylvan Esso, Broken Social Scene and Tame Impala — many in her field are “1099’d some weeks and W-2 for others,” leading to confusing conversations (https://blog.thecurrent.org/2020/07/im-completely-unsure-behind-the-scenes-music-pros-hang-in-pandemic-limbo-hope-for-change/) with local unemployment offices. And in the event that touring contracts change to reduce artists’ guarantees (as has been suspected (https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/live-nation-reduce-artist-payments-1234641466/) with promoters like Live Nation), tour managers and crew — whose pay often comes straight out of artists’ touring revenues — will be directly affected as well.
On the brink of extinction, events workers are making more noise than ever — from a rally in Los Angeles (https://variety.com/2020/music/news/live-events-workers-unemployed-rally-demonstration-la-live-1234734784/) , to a press conference (https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9436461/chuck-schumer-james-murphy-indie-venues-save-our-stages-act) in New York featuring LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Most of us have been able to get by with pandemic unemployment assistance, but that is quickly running out,” Abbey Simmons, a tour manager who spent over 300 days on the road in 2019 and works with the likes of Maggie Rogers, Sleater-Kinney and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, tells me. “In the last few weeks, I’ve had a few crew members ask if I would be a reference for their job applications. Part of it is the realization that none of us are going to be on tour this year — I personally don’t expect to be working in my field until 2022. That’s a worst-case scenario, but I don’t think it’s unseeable.”
An important point to drive home is that the wider industry shift to livestreaming has not been a boon for the majority of crew working behind the scenes on traditional tours.
Yes, a handful of tour managers and festival programmers have been involved in one-off livestreamed festivals, such as programmer Yusuf “Yuie” Muhammad with At The Crib Fest (https://onemusicfest.com/stage/events/atcf/) and tour manager Tina Farris with Questlove and The Roots’ Africa Day Festival (http://www.jagurltv.com/africa-day-festival-questlove-the-roots-naomi-campbell/) . Simon Clark, who previously handled lighting, video and production design for clients like Skrillex, Wilco and the Coachella and Sasquatch festivals under his company Stageworks (https://www.livedesignonline.com/concerts/q-a-simon-clark-and-jeremy-roth-stageworks) , refurbished his field production truck into a mobile livestreaming studio, filming shows for local artists in Washington State under the banner Vashon Live (https://www.vashonbeachcomber.com/news/upstart-producers-keep-vashons-arts-scene-humming-online/) . The few independent venues that are opening up around the country may have opportunities for sound engineers and production managers to handle livestreamed events onsite (https://www.patreon.com/posts/39804919) , as may the smattering of drive-in concerts around the world.
But for most crew members, these opportunities are hard to come by, and it’s not simple just to “pivot” to livestreaming. “Unless you’re quarantining with your artist, there’s not as much for crew to do” in a livestream event, says Simmons. “You’re not going to have someone onsite mixing the sound, making sure the ‘green room’ is OK, settling the show, getting all performers there on time. It’s still so DIY, unless you are at the level of someone like Beyoncé or the Jonas Brothers and have assistants on hand.” Moreover, tour managers in particular are used to being on the road for as much as 100 days in a year working directly with artists; few artists are livestreaming with the same amount of volume and consistency (that’s more like a schedule for content creators and social-media influencers).
So… what kind of work is left? Some would naturally turn to travel, hospitality and film production for alternative jobs — but “those industries are also being devastated right now,” David Burton, a tour manager who works with the likes of Beach House, Dirty Projectors and Sleigh Bells, tells me. “Industries that are more directly catered to our business, and where we’ve naturally cultivated our contacts over the years, are now in a comparable position to the live music industry.”
The next big opportunity — which has real political and societal urgency — might ironically involve helping the country run itself.
Back in March, many production companies with previous business interests in live touring, including Upstaging (https://www.upstaging.com/) and Choura Events (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-03-30/coronavirus-event-companies-coachella-pivot-covid-19-testing) , immediately transitioned to manufacturing and delivering pop-up medical tents, face shields and other personal protective equipment (PPE) across the country. Upstaging in particular has since expanded to manufacturing desk shields, screening shields and physical-distancing stickers as well.
“People I know who can make a show happen in a day with a thousand moving parts could easily do things that are not being done in our country right now, if they were just given the opportunity to do it,” says Simmons. “Every tour manager in America would be excellent as a contact tracer. There are thousands upon thousands of unemployed stage managers and roadies who could set up testing sites and contact tracing easily.”
Many of the most in-demand soft and hard skills that many employers are looking for today, particularly adaptability, communication skills, crisis management and a penchant for solving complex problems, are par for the course in the fast-pace world of tour management.
“We’re good with people — we have to manage and nurture large teams as part of our jobs — which opens us up to sales, management, artist-liaison and even teaching positions,” says Burton. “We’re also excellent with numbers and can handle at least basic finance, accounting and bookkeeping jobs. We can also do security jobs because we have experience walking VIPs in and out of buildings safely and efficiently.”
Yet translating those skills for the more traditional workforce is easier said than done. For one, employers might not have even considered reaching out to tour managers in the first place, due to the latter’s grueling travel schedules; in Simmons’ words, “a lot of skilled workers from the touring world haven’t normally available to their local labor markets until now.”
There’s also the preconceived notion that anyone can do a given crew member’s job, or that the role is somehow unprofessional. “There’s still this stereotype of what a ‘roadie’ is, and I’ve spent a ton of time in my life explaining what I do for work, why it is work and why I am paid to do it,” says Simmons.
Then there’s the fact that the touring industry, like the music industry, relies so heavily on relationships for employment — meaning that many tour managers never felt that they had to update their resumes to get their next gig.
“If you tour consistently, you’ve never had a reason to look for a traditional job — you just wait until the next tour,” Christopher Patterson, who runs his own tour management company The Big Fantastic (http://thebigfantastic.co/) and has worked with the likes of Janelle Monáe, Ari Lennox and 6LACK, tells me. “There needs to be resume coaching for touring professionals to help them transition into a more traditional work environment. Their skill set would be so useful at companies that are still operating during the pandemic, such as labels or trucking and logistics companies.”
For instance, Patterson is training some tour managers and crew members in his network on merch packaging and fulfillment and is “pitching them to different artists I work with,” which also ideally saves some money for the artist: “Traditional fulfillment costs an arm and a leg, so ideally you can price them out and get fulfillment done directly for a cheaper price,” he says.
Simmons recently bought the URL hireroadies.com (https://hireroadies.com/) , and is in the process of building out a dictionary of sorts for tour managers’ and crew members’ translatable skills. Also in progress is a searchable database of local crew members available for employment in specific states and cities that governments and businesses can reference in their hiring processes.
“I don’t know a single person I’ve worked with as a crew member who wouldn’t be willing to work long, hard hours to help their community,” says Simmons. “I hope someone taps us.” ✯ MORE DEEP-DIVES ICYMI: Will Hipgnosis actually work? (https://www.patreon.com/posts/41508083) Cherie unpacks the potential cracks in Hipgnosis’ strategy and public messaging — from its financial performance and catalog quality, to its allegedly advocacy-driven ulterior motive to change the songwriting landscape.
How smart speakers are changing music listening (https://www.patreon.com/posts/41232908) Voice interface designer Brooke Hawkins unpacks the implications that smart speakers, and the big-tech companies (Amazon, Google, etc.) that manufacture them, may have on our relationship to music and the artists who create it.
John Legend on Headspace: Expanding what “wellness music” can sound like (https://www.patreon.com/posts/41612567) Pop/R&B star John Legend is now the face of Headspace’s music strategy, despite never having meditated regularly before. Music and culture journalist Christina Lee dives into the implications of this collaboration for Headspace’s strategy, for future artist-brand partnerships and for the scope of the “wellness music industry” at large.
Why so many music producers are starting Discord communities (https://www.patreon.com/posts/41358486) In the past month alone, artists and producers like Monte Booker, Sango and A.G. Cook have all launched their own Discord servers to run their fan communities. Cherie dives into the motivations behind this new movement, and how the resulting fan dynamics resemble a new take on music forums from the early 2000s. GOOD FINDS FROM THE WEB
On global live-music scenes: * Beirut’s destroyed clubbing district: ‘I don’t know how we will recover’ (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/15/beiruts-destroyed-clubbing-district-i-dont-know-how-we-will-recover) (Marcus Barnes, The Guardian) * The future of live music shows in the Covid-19 era? It’s here, with Mandopop star Eric Chou’s sold-out arena concerts (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/entertainment/article/3098332/future-live-music-shows-covid-19-era-its-here-taiwanese-pop) (Yu Kang, South China Morning Post) * Jazz Lives in Clubs. The Pandemic Is Threatening Its Future. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/arts/music/jazz-clubs-coronavirus.html) (Ben Sisario and Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times)
On avatars and A.I. in music and culture: * Could They Be Any More Famous? (https://www.theringer.com/2020/9/15/21433159/digital-avatars-celebrities-the-weekend-tiktok) (Alyssa Bereznak, The Ringer) * [podcast] Deepfake Dallas (https://www.20k.org/episodes/deepfakedallas) (Dallas Taylor, Twenty Thousand Hertz)
On gaming: * Top composers used to head to Hollywood. Now they’re into games (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/video-game-composers) (Will Bedingfield, WIRED) * Bloomberg and The Washington Post are betting big on gaming. Here’s why (https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/08/media/gaming-media-bloomberg-washington-post/index.html) (Kerry Flynn, CNN) * Facebook Gaming will now allow partnered streamers to play copyrighted music (https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436136/facebook-gaming-partnered-streamer-copyright-music-riaa-twitch-youtube) (Bijan Stephen, The Verge) * [video] Hotline Miami and the Rise of Synthwave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjsic8hiQ5k) (Michael Saba)
On other tech and entertainment business models: * How the Streaming Exclusive Died and Came Back to Life (https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/music-podcast-streaming-exclusives-1059218/) (Tim Ingham, Rolling Stone) * First Paid Livestreaming Gig in Taiwan Is a Mix of Hip-Hop, Chopping Boards and Raw Fish (https://taiwanbeats.tw/archives/11365) (Louise Watt, Taiwan Beats) * ‘You’re stealing my money’: StubHub leaves customers feeling screwed (https://theathletic.com/2011498/2020/09/02/youre-stealing-my-money-stubhub-leaves-customers-feeling-screwed/) (Jason Lloyd, The Athletic)
============================================================ Twitter (https://twitter.com/cheriehu42) Website (https://cheriehu.com) Email (mailto:cherie@cheriehu.com) Medium (https://medium.com/@cheriehu42) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheriehu/) Copyright © |CURRENT_YEAR| |LIST:COMPANY|, All rights reserved.
Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences (|UPDATE_PROFILE|) or unsubscribe from this list (|UNSUB|) .