Working at a venue

Once more, a long tour was over, and our artist had gone away. There were no plans of a new show or tour for at least 6 months, and after that, studio time would start for a new album.
Long story short, I was unemployed, and had no saving at all, as I stupidly accepted working for a ridiculously low fee for that tour.


I definitely had a love-hate relationship with Jenny. After all our conflicts on the tour, she referred me to the manager of a big venue, who was looking for a backstage and artist coordinator for their summer season. The pay was very poor, but it would be an invaluable experience for me.
The first time I went to meet the manager, I thought I was going to a job interview, but instead, he just said welcome to our team, and handed me the all access badge which already had my name on it. 


It was a great open air venue with a capacity of 20K and the most beautiful backstage area I had ever seen with many dressing rooms, spacious catering areas, a small garden, adequate shower and restroom facilities. And it was run by the biggest promotion company here.


Basically my job was to fulfill backstage riders, and host artist crew in the venue. 
I reviewed riders, negotiated with the catering company, forwarded catering quotes to manager, got rejected every time, negotiated again, contacted tour managers and worked with them through advancing (I sent them all the necessary info about the venue, backstage drawing, even the menus to be served, for their confirmation). When artist crew arrived, I met them in the venue, arranged merchandising, meet&greet, helped them in all kinds of situations, in all their last minute requests, and translated for them whenever needed. 
Of course I didn't do everything by myself, we had a large production team and runners. Everyday I was amazed how things were running so smoothly when everything is handled professionally.


I met and worked with great people such as Martin Walker (Judas Priest), Tracy Fraser (Björk), Steve Ricalis (Mike Knopfler), Amanda Cunningham and Dana Pennington (Lenny Kravitz) to name a few. 
Of course it was not always a bed of roses, but paying attention to details always helped. Even providing the requested brand of soap for the artist would make a huge difference.

Although I've always dreamt of working within an international crew, and touring all over the world, I didn't even tell anything about this to those people I worked with that summer. I was so happy working with my local artists that hunting for other opportunities didn't even cross my mind. Very stupid of me. 

I also worked with almost all the artists in the local music industry. In those shows, along with the usual backstage management, I was in charge of production, and coordination of local production crews. I started to get familiar with technical production riders. It was the summer of 2008, and we held events starting with  concerts of local bands, and then we broadcast FIFA World Cup matches on the giant screen set up on the stage.
And of course, this experience was a great opportunity for networking, which is always said to be one of the most important things about a music industry career. Indeed, one of the artist managers I met there hired me in a few months, but I'm going to tell about this in the next post.


That summer, I learnt what it meant to work on the promoter side of an event, depending on a limited budget, being the party that does not request things, but fulfills requests. 
I also learnt how to use walkie talkies effectively, working at such a huge venue with a very crowded local crew consisting of venue management, promotion company representatives, PR team, production crew, site managers, ticketing and box office staff, security, and paramedics. Before every show, I watched the venue manager giving great speeches to these teams in the pre-event meetings, explaining the importance of the event, and his expectations from every individual team. I was fascinated by those speeches everytime, imagined myself giving such a speech one day. 


Yes, everything was great, I was learning so much, but I decided to quit.
I worked there 2 months that summer, everyday, under the sun at 35 C, for at least 12 hours. We had an event every other day, but usually I had to be there on those days in-between for preperations as well. I was exhausted, lost 15 pounds, and I was struggling to even pay the rent.


But that's not why I quit.


The metal band was playing at a festival, and leaving for another city at night, for a second festival. But I had to be at the venue to work at a local event of a pop singer. I had told the manager that I had to go to that other city with the metal band as their tour manager, and although he'd said I could go before, he changed his mind on the show day, and told me to stay. 
But I didn't. I couldn't. I made sure everything was arranged, let artist manager and all relevant crew know that I had to go, appointed someone to take care of backstage aftershow, and when the concert started, I left after saying goodbye to the manager, and thanking him for everything.


I went to the festival site while my band was playing their last song. They were all very happy to see me backstage after the show, We immediately set off for the next city, didn't sleep at all, spent the trip drinking and chatting all night.
It felt like I was back home, with my family, after a great vacation.

Next: Star Struck

Another tour

The female rock star had another one-month-long tour in the summer of 2008. I was so happy when I got this news, cos I could finally work as a "tour manager", not "backstage assistant" with that rockstar with all the experience I had gained.

Excited about the opportunity, I talked to Jenny about it. And she said it was impossible because:
- I didn't have what it took to be a tour manager
- A tour manager had to be expert on all aspects of production, including technical stuff
- Tour manager had to be hired by the promoter, not the artist, so that in case of any problems, Jenny could argue with another party

To me, all these were complete, utter bullshit.
But I just couldn't convince Jenny. She also told me that she didn't need an assistant anymore, so she cut off my pay by half.

It felt like she was trying to make me quit. At the end of that conversation, while I was trying to digest what I'd just heard, she told that this was just business, and if I didn't want to work as backstage assistant, I was free to go. Knowing that I was attached to everyone in the crew and this job much more beyond than "just business", I couldn't believe how she could offer me something like this.
I didn't even think of quitting, I felt like I had no other choice, and accepted to work as a backstage assistant.

As Jenny was still on maternity leave, she appointed the assistant of another artist manager to work on this tour on her behalf, and the promoter company hired a tour manager. Two complete strangers to the crew.

On the morning of the first day of the tour, while I was getting ready to leave for airport, I received a bulk sms from Jenny, informing everyone that I was just a backstage assistant, other two people would be responsible for everything. I avoided even having eye contact to anyone from the crew at the airport, because the moment someone would have told me something about that sms, my chin would start trembling.


As a  habit from last year, everyone was still asking everything to me on the first days of the tour. And telling them I didn't know, that it was not my job anymore made me feel terrible.

The assistant girl was as unprepared as I told I was in this post, and the tour manager was the most annoying person on earth. He always wore suits, had a terrible attitude especially towards technical crew, and he liked drinking the band's Jack Daniels during concerts.
I confirmed how appropriate my rule of never drinking while working was, as I watched him every night, trying to have a decent conversation with important industry people and sponsors backstage, unable to even pronounce his name.

One day, the artist said she needed to go to sauna after the show, and when we went back to the hotel, she found out that sauna was closed, such a request wasn't made to the hotel manager. She just said to the assistant girl: "I will be at the sauna in 10 minutes, fix this" and walked away.
While the assistant was struggling to convince the reception guy to open the sauna, and getting the same answer everytime she asked, I approached another hotel worker, told how urgent the situation was, he put me through to the night manager, I convinced him, found out where sauna key was and who could open it, and 10 minutes later, I met the artist in sauna entrance. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel useless.

Just a couple of days later, the tour manager had a terrible arrangement about transportation, and a band member had to drive 15 hours by himself and play a show that same night.

After this, as I also knew Jenny was receiving complaints from the crew, I told her I wanted my old responsibilities back. She said she couldn't pay me for this, I accepted to work for backstage assistant salary anyway.

During the rest of the tour, the other two became best friends, enjoyed touring life without working, and I kept arranging everything, answering every question with a huge smile on my face.

Next: Working at a venue

One long month

The most difficult time I had in this job was that one month after Jenny had her son.

I had her laptop and blackberry with me, I was answering her phone, checking her mails, and dealing with many offers for the next summer tour of the female rock star. Yes, she was also working as the booking agent, and there it was: one more thing in this industry I knew nothing about.
I carefully read Jenny's pre-booking correspondences, and listened to her many times when she was talking to promoters on the phone. After a couple of  phone calls and emails, there was nothing to be worried about.

I had to answer many phone calls from unknown numbers, all they asked was : "How much is that artist? I need to confirm this show in 2 hours!"
Confirming a show in such a short time was impossible, at least for our artist.
I asked all the callers to write an email with the following info:
* Anticipated date and place of the concert
* Detailed pictures of the venue (pictures from past events and CAD drawings and floor plan including backstage areas, if available would be great)
* Sound and lighting company and their equipment list
* Anticipated ticket prices
* Target ticket sales
* Info on sponsors, if any
* PR planning of the show

Even requesting such a mail would eliminate at least half of the callers, and only after that, could we present the offer to the artist, and calculate an appropriate artist fee, and respond the promoter with that quote plus our requirements.


I was also working on the metal band's gala concert after the release of their dvd.
As a gift to fans, we gave away the dvd with the concert ticket. We planned a special show, with 8 top local artists covering the band's classical songs, each coming to the stage as a surprise during the band's performance. I arranged all these artists (confirmation, rehearsals, show day transportation, backstage riders, etc.) and took care of many other things on the show day. I felt like I was juggling.

For my hard work of that month, Jenny and I agreed on a salary which was quite moderate.
We were partners with the promoters in this concert, which meant the band would have a share in the revenue after break-even. And Jenny got paid as the 6th band member.
Before the concert, I'd asked her if she could pay me more if the show was a huge success. She replied: "How much money I make is none of your business".

Although it was a great concert, it wasn't a huge success, the venue was half empty.
Then Jenny asked me if it was OK to pay me a little less than we agreed as the show was a disappointment, and naturally I replied: "I thought your income was none of my business".

This was it.
This was the breaking point in our relationship with Jenny.
She immediately paid me in full, but things would never be the same after that.

Next: Another Tour

Labor Pain

Writing this blog, I remember all the good times I had in these past 4 years. I go through emails to remember events correctly, watch interviews and live footage of these artists from those years. The reason I started writing was that I'd decided to quit, and I was going to tell how I got there. But it's getting into me so much that I may have to reconsider my decision of quitting.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this blog at least half as much as I enjoy writing.

As I told in the previous post, I worked on the metal band's concerts and projects, and went on another big tour with the rockstar. Between those two, Jenny gave birth to her child but didn't work actively in the first few months of the baby. She was half-back, with a severe baby blues and aggression at the same time. And that's when the problems started.

In late 2007, the metal band kept playing one-offs. We also went to play at a heavy metal festival in eastern Europe as a small entourage: 5 band members, me, the roadie and the fotographer. I think this is the ideal definition of a very small crew. Things didn't go very well technically, but at least we have cool photos of that tour :)

The festival was a disaster, there were around 3.000 people against an expectation of 15.000, the "promoter" was a 25 year old kid, who had just bankrupt, exhausted mentally and physically, but still trying to make the festival happen, convince bands to play, as a metal lover. I tried my best to at least refund the expenses, but it was clearly impossible. I explained the situation to the band who were enjoying a great hotel in a beautiful city -all the promoter could cover were all our hotel extras. All of it. Got it? :)-, excited to play to a foreign crowd in a couple of hours. They said fuck it, let's play, and they did. The sound, the crowd, the concert in general was terrible, but somehow we managed to have a good time.
A few months later, when we had all forgot about it, I received a cheque from the promoter covering all the expenses.

Then the DVD madness began. Although I had done a lot, taking so much responsibility in a few months, I was still a beginner. I had absolutely no idea what releasing a dvd was all about, or what I had to do as the artist party representative.
Jenny spent the last month of her pregnancy at the hospital, in bed; she had hypertension and preeclampsia, she strictly had to avoid excessive motion and stress, or she could lose the baby.
So I had to work as the general coordinator of the dvd process, with the local division of an international major record label. I went to PR meetings, gathered all the info about interview and media coverage offers, label meetings about timetable, audio and visual material, contracts, payments, royalties, etc.
Every two or three days, I went to see Jenny in the hospital. After long conversations about local music industry, life, pregnancy, future projects, I'd share all the info I'd gathered, and she would make comments and suggestions. Then I talked to the band, dealt with all studio time - the band was rehearsing for gala concert of dvd- and arranged tv, radio and press interviews and went with them to every one of them. I arranged the photo shoot, had consent letters signed, etc. It required hard work to arrange everything to go smoothly, and although the paperwork went ok, the artistic aspect of the project was much different. The lead gutiarist of the band was also the director of the dvd, and he wanted everything to be perfect so bad, that we had to postpone release date a couple of times.

And after all that, I had learnt what releasing a dvd  was all about. It was so much like giving birth in several ways. We had labor pain until we saw the dvd on the shelves.

Around exactly the same time, while the band was interviewing for their cover story on Rolling Stone, Jenny gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy.

Next: One Long Month

"You're the only person I know..."

So, back to the story:

I had learnt that that Jenny was pregnant.
During the next 10 months, I went on a club tour, and a few one-offs here and abroad with the metal band, I worked in their dvd release project, premiere concert of that dvd, and a second big tour with the female star, all without Jenny.

As I told before, that metal band's shows were always so much fun to work on. We had booked a 7-show club tour, which depended on ticket sales and in the end, the revenue almost only covered the expenses and crew fees. I booked hotels, flights, nightliners, turned that itinerary template of mine, which I was very proud of, into a tourbook with some extra stuff. Informed the crew and all parties involved, followed-up promotion work, made suggestions if needed. We met at Jenny's home now and then, I showed her what I'd been doing about the tour, she would give feedback and make suggestions. We also prepared excel sheets for the tour budget together, so that I could do the accounting during the tour. I worked with a production manager this time, who was a great help.

After two weeks of advancing work, we were ready to set off for the first gig.
Their tourbus was always so much fun. Some members of the band enjoyed playing PS games, holding tournaments among the whole crew, listening to classical heavy metal songs together, having great conversations about the songs, old times, memories, watching YouTube videos together, etc. on the upper deck, and others would have great appetizers and drinks downstairs, again along with great conversation.
They were extremely talented musicians. It was always great pleasure to watch their soundcheck. They would sometimes improvize great stuff on stage during soundcheck. We, as the crewmembers, used to enjoy witnessing it.

Following one of those great soundchecks in the first city of the tour, the show was also amazing. Except, in the end of the show, while the band was greeting the audience after the encore, the vocalist fell down the stage and some stage gear slit his leg. I was shocked, when I saw the band coming down from the stage, one of them in bloods but still smiling, He was so drunk that he wasn't feeling the pain yet, which was a good thing, 'cos it would be terrible if he had panicked.

It was the end of a long day, I had a minibus ready at the back entrance of that small club, I had an injured, drunk and calm artist, four other terrified band members, technical crew rushing backstage, worried, a few girl friends who were there to party aftershow and they were just trying to see the wound now, club owner and promoter all in the tiny dressing room, and tens of fans waiting in front of backstage for autographs.

I just took a deep breath, and started orginizing things:

I kindly told everyone who didn't have anything to do there to go out.
I asked the promoter to take the injured artist to the nearest private hospital, I told the production manager to go with them and made sure he had money with him. I also asked the first roadie to take care of load-out.
I sent the band and the crew to the hotel through the back entrance. I told the driver to come back for me and the roadies after dropping them to the hotel.
Then I talked to the fans waiting outside, told them the band was gone, and I went to the hotel, waited in the lobby to hear from the production manager.

While I was waiting, the sound engineer, who is now one of my closest friends, came sat next to me, told me how cool it was that I stayed calm and took care of everything backstage, and then said
"You're the only person I know in this industry, who has come that far in such a short time. You've had an amazing leap in your career, and we all see it. You're amazing"

One hour later, the vocalist and the production manager came to the hotel. The singer was now sober and in pain, had 17 stiches, but he was fine. He also got the artist treatment at hospital, as the intern who did stiches turned out to be a huge fan, upset that he missed the show because of his shift.

We had to postpone rest of the tour for 2 weeks. So my tourbook was now useless with all the info it had in it. We printed an updated tourbook for everyone, put a bandaid on it, and rest of the tour went just fine.

Next: Labor Pain

Some video recommendations

I want to take a pause from telling the story for a while, and share some videos with you.

Today, while I was watching Queen's Rock Montreal:

And staring at the screen exactly like this:

I received a mail from FTTS, a wonderful website I just discovered.

They just put my blog on their front page!

Thank you so much to the guys at Friends To The Stars,a great resource for anyone thinking of entering music industry.


I track visitors to Backstage Life, and everyday, I am amazed looking at the visitors map.

You out there, reading these lines from USA, UK, Netherlands, Finland, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Belgium, Canada and many more countries, thank you for reading my semi-therapeutical kind-of autobiography.


Here are some amazing youtube links for you:


RUSH S&A Tour - Concert Tech Documentary - Fun to watch for anyone who's ever been backstage during production set-up

Inside Rolling Stones - NatGeo Documentary on Rio Concert - One of the two reasons why I decided I wanted to work in this business. Amazing documentay, definitely a must-watch. Here is just a trailer:



Iron Maiden Backstage Secrets 2009  - funny insider stories from Iron Maiden crew, a look at backstage life in their world.

Madonna - I'm going to tell you a secret - the second reason why I wanted to work backstage. Here is only the trailer, but you must see the full dvd

Please don't hesitate to send the link if there are any similar videos you'd like to recommend. 

Next: "You're the only person I know..."

Surprise!

By the summer of 2007, I had become that manager's assistant (Her name is Jenny, btw). Everything was fine, except our artist had been away for a long time and  didn't even have a single concert for longer than 5 months.

That was an ordinary case for that artist's career. She released great albums every 3-4 years, only played in big arenas and festivals (no club gigs or corporate events), and took long time-offs to go to the States, mostly Los Angeles. It was cool and all, but her crew also had to take these long breaks. In turn, all her live events were amazing sold out shows, satisactory on every level.

Anyway, that summer, while waiting for her return, I worked at open air festivals as an artist guide. I've always enjoyed meeting international artists at the airport. Most of the time I'm the first person they see in this country, and they like it when this person is someone fluent in English, has a good attitude, who is always there to solve in case of any problems with the luggage, transportation, etc.
This is how I first started working at concerts, and although I enjoyed it, I had no intention of doing it any longer.

When the artist returned in the end of summer, we had a show booked at a special open air venue in a beautiful city.  It was going to be an acoustic show with a larger orchestra and different arrangements of the songs. It included a special stage design with vintage furniture, velvet curtains and chandeliers.
And it would be my first event without Jenny.
She was sick and she could only be there by the showday, on showtime, but she would be accessible by phone in case of any problems. I was quite confident about it. A little too confident, maybe..

I started by checking flight dates. The crew was more crowded and some people were travelling from different cities. Prepared a daily schedule with only the basic info (sent it only to the promoter), sent backstage rider to the promoter, helped Jenny pick the stage furnitures, went to the store to make sure correct items were being loaded, and that was all the preperation I did for that highly important show.
I was oh so inexperienced, so unprepared!

I didn't check names on the flight list, just got the tickets,
I didn't prepare a rooming list, I didn't have the crew's ID copies,
I didn't call the hotel to inform them about our arrival time and double-check the rooms,
I didn't have a detailed daily schedule,
I hadn't done online check-in for flights.

And I went there with the band and the crew, by myself. We had two days for rehearsals and the show.
After finding out at the airport that some tickets were missing, I had to buy new tickets, and after a very, very long wait in the lobby (our rooms were not ready) and an annoyingly long check-in time, everyone went to their rooms.

I was answering everyone's questions there, telling people what time they needed to be where, etc. But it kept causing problems. Not all the band members heard my announcements, so someone was always late. And I had to tell the same thing to different people over and over again. It was a stupid waste of time.

In the mean time, the visual production crew were having problems with their flights. They needed a new flight, as they had already requested it to Jenny but the correct name wasn't on the flight list..
In that great holiday resort, while everyone was relaxing at the beach or by the pool, I was freaking out in a hotel room, trying to send text messages to everyone in the crew about rehearsal times, pick-up times, calling the drivers, answering musician calls from my room asking what time the breakfast was, sorting out per diems for everyone, all at the same time.

The rehearsal day was fine, except it lasted much longer than expected, and I had to work for more than 16 hours. I was exhausted.
In the evening of the show day, I was checking the dressing room riders, receiving calls from the artist's invitees, meeting vip ones in the entrance, and if there were any problems with the invitations, I had to go to the box office to solve. Every time I went to the box office, I had to deal with the fans, receive their gifts, letters, pictures for the artist.

While I was dealing with all these, just before the band was about to come to the venue, a band member called me and he basically bawled me out on the phone, asking questions. He wasn't actually asking, he was telling me all the things that I'd fucked up, such as:

"I heard from the guitarist that we were gathering for dinner at hotel restaurant, why didn't I know that?"
"Another one in the crew didn't know we had per diems, did you tell him?"
"We had to wait for the shuttle in the hotel lobby for 30 minutes, why is that?"
"All these are your responsibility, why don't you focus and do what you have to do!"

I just apologised and promised I'd do better next time.
This was getting too much for me, I was having a hard time handling all these. Tried so hard to keep my mood up, before and during the show, but it was difficult to accept that he was right.

The concert was great as always.
This was also the first time I witnessed the artist's huge ego. Normally she was a very sweet woman, but everytime she stepped down these stairs from stage, minutes after thousands of fans literally worshipped her, sang along to all her intimate, personal songs for hours, she became someone else.
I had to interrupt her while she was talking to bandmembers as I had to tell that the sponsors wanted to meet her. She didn't let me speak.
I saw a certain look in her eyes that night, in that dressing room while she was telling me never to do it again, in front of everyone. It was a furious look, which made you instantly realize that you did something very, very terrible and it made you feel awful.
Didn't make it a big deal, but I never forgot that look.

Everyone went to partying afterwards, I didn't join them. I had a terrible night alone in my hotel room. I kept thinking about that phone call, listing everything that went wrong in my head. I felt like shit.
In the morning, I pressed cold glass bottles from the minibar on my puffy eyes (this later became a sad ritual for me), put on a heavy make up, tried to be that positive, happy girl again.
Came back home, opened excel, and prepared this:

itinerary template

In all of the events after that one, I sent the crew this spreadsheet, asked if everything was ok, had it printed for everyone as a badge along with their passcards.
It saved me an enormous amount of time, everyone liked having all the necessary info easily accessible, drivers, promoters, caterers all appreciated it.

Today, I still appeciate that phone call from the band member. It made me realize everything quicker.

Oh, and I forgot to tell the surprise:

On the evening of the show day, Jenny arrived. She still looked sick. She was a heavy smoker. We used to have long talks while smoking in the tourbus, or during the concert. I offered her a cigarette that night, she said she quit.

She was pregnant.

As she was almost 40, it would be a difficult pregnancy and she had to avoid travel, stress, etc.
This meant I would be doing all the shows as her assistant, by myself for the next 8-10 months.

Nezt: Some video recommendations