Music Touring Management 101 - Ep. 1: Management Structure and Production Team

[Music] hi i'm andrea from patrick and friends music and today we're going to be talking about live touring in the music industry the breakdown of

those jobs and what exactly all of that means over the past six years i've worked in a variety of production roles in the live music industry from assistant

to tour manager to production coordinator to a bunch of different things in between what does all that mean what are those roles what are those titles and what do they do to get into that i want to first talk

about an artist's regular management team and what they all do and how that relates to the touring team the touring team is actually entirely different

from an artist's day-to-day management team and only come out when the artist is about to go on a tour so in a regular artist's structure if you look at the artist

as the ceo they are always on top at the end of the day they're the boss they're who's in charge although they don't have a lot of say in the day-to-day tiny details and

nuances of things they hire people to handle those details for them so under the artist umbrella there are three main important people that they would hire

the artist would have their lawyer their management team and their business accountant all three of these play a very huge part in our touring world as well but we'll get into that in a little bit

under the management umbrella there are a whole lot of people you that's where you have your agency your record label your promoter you have your publisher

you do promotion you do press you do pr and distribution all of that is entirely separate from the live music team so what gets an artist ready to go on tour

and artists will go on tour when they have a new album to promote this tour cycle can be anywhere from a couple of months all the way to two or three years an

artist such as vampire weekend in 2019 released their new album father of the bride so they were going on the father of the bride tour cycle

for all of 2019 and all of 2020 in these big tour cycles you usually have tour legs or tour segments and those are broken up based on the region that you're touring in

so you would have your north america tour you can even break that down and have an east coast run in a west coast run you would have your european run and then you'd have your australia japan run

if that's something you were doing so the prepping of the album and the distribution of the album and the press for the album is all something that's handled totally apart from me and my job when

the artist is ready to go on tour they have this new album that's ready to be distributed right before that album is distributed so you can do promotion or as it's being distributed you would start your

tour the booking of the venues the contracts that are put into place and the general routing of the tour are also all things that are not actually handled

by the tour management team that's handled by your management your promoter and your agency we'll get more into how management

and the agent decides those contracts and negotiates those deals in a later episode so let's get into the structure of the touring team same as before your artist is always the

ceo they are on top they are the main boss under the artist you have your management team that's the same however the management team does not always come out onto the road

there are times in bigger tours when you have more celebrity artists where the managers will come out and handle the artist's day-to-day a little bit separate from the tour itself because the touring team

is there to handle the tour the live concert and everything that goes into putting on that show a lot of times that does mean we're taking care of the artists and the band and the crew as well

but when you have really high stakes celebrities management personal assistants can come out to handle just that person management is who puts together the touring team

it is pretty rare that the artist is vetting their own touring team for their tour so right below management on the tour whether management comes out or not

would be your tour production team this is usually comprised of three core people when you have a very large-scale tour you can have as many people on the

production team as you need i've been on teams with seven people before i've been on teams with two it really is just dependent on the size of your tour and how many people you need to cover the responsibilities of

the day let's talk about our production team you will always have a tour manager a production manager and a production coordinator which is my role

the tour manager the production manager and the production coordinator all work together to oversee that the entire tour is running smoothly and that everybody is happy and that essentially the show goes on at

the end of the day so how are those roles different from each other and what do they all mean let's start with the tour manager the tour manager is the general keeper of all of the budgets

they oversee and approve any spending that needs to go on and they are the on tour boss at the end of the day if anybody from the venue needs to ask anybody a question they would want to

see the tour manager the tour manager has to approve of most things that go on on the tour the tour manager does not spend most of the day at the venue they spend most of the day where the band is

so that if the band or the artist need anything at all they are readily available to help the band that's also why you have other people on your team to go into the venue super early and take care of some

things on the ground the tour manager as well as the production coordinator and the production manager do a lot of advancing for the shows we'll get into what

advancing is in a moment as well the production manager is responsible for all of the gear on the stage that includes every light every microphone every wire every speaker

that person makes sure that all the gear that we need arrives at each venue the gear that we're carrying with us arrives at each venue safely and that everything is working

they are overseeing the crew and the crew needs and the gear needs to ensure that everything is running smoothly for the live show if the crew has any issues

they will typically go to the production manager to address their issues then there's me the production coordinator i like to say that i am the assistant and the glue for both the production manager and the tour

manager anything that they need in between their responsibilities anything that they need to pass on to somebody else anything extra on their plate

they give to me so i would be somebody who handles things for both of them as well as keeping the band crew and everybody in between happy throughout the day that means i aid the

tour manager in flight booking hotel booking email writing scheduling advancing and planning and i'm also assisting the production manager in the overseeing of

the crew the manifests the visas keeping everything in line keeping the crew happy and fed and doing their best as well so the three of us are a big part of each other's days and

without the three of us communicating really well and working together really well the whole thing would be running a lot less efficiently your production team needs to be working

together really well in order for the day to go smoothly so in terms of the band and the artist versus the crew the band and the artist will either go to the tour manager or the production coordinator to handle

things such as hospitality food dressing room backstage needs the crew will typically go to the production manager just to speak a little bit more on the

responsibilities of a production coordinator because that is the role that i know best it is the one i've been doing for many years um i'm gonna list off a couple of responsibilities that i would have on a

normal day today and a day for us would typically start at seven or eight a.m

a.m and we would work the entire day up until when the show starts then we have work to do during the show and then after the show comes down

we have to load out all of the gear that we brought in in the morning so our day doesn't typically end until about like one two maybe later depending on the show day as well so we have extremely long

days and in those days there are a lot of little things that need to happen that people don't always even realize that we're doing so some of my responsibilities as a production

coordinator include sending out day sheets for both the band and the crew a day sheet just has the schedule and a bunch of information about the day including call times for

the crew what time they need to report to the lobby of the hotel or to the venue the show times the opener times the meal times and

all those other weird times in between sound check line check and again we can get to what all those things mean in a little bit i'm responsible for runner management and transportation management

the setup and breakdown of the production office signing the entire venue so that the band and the crew know where they're going when they get in loading in the production cases so setting up our production

office in each venue something that has to happen every day i help coordinate the bus and truck drivers where they're going to park at each venue making sure they get to their hotels making sure that they're fed

those are also people that are considered a part of our day-to-day people that you wouldn't even think about when you think about touring i'm responsible for gear and package tracking

radio management distribution and packing it away advancing and overseeing all transportation movements usually there are different movements for the band and the crew usually they're staying at completely

different hotels and they have completely different call times to the venue organizing and facilitating the purchase of gear while on the road so if anybody needs a new wire

a broken drumstick they need a new drumstick and anything in between that the crew would come to me to order and then make sure we receive that item organizing all gear manifests

for oversea travels overseeing loadout with the production manager all catering all meals all riders i have to advance

and oversee throughout the day wine or coffee advancing if a band has specific wine or coffee needs which sounds a little silly but i've worked with many artists where that is a really

huge factor in their day the band and crew dressing room setup and breakdown because a lot of times we bring in our own furniture our own wardrobe cases our own

decorations and our own displays so that all falls under the umbrella of what i do i'm responsible for all the stage needs such as coolers waters towels any special drinks that the band may

need throughout the night i'm responsible for setlist printing and management guest list management and overseeing so if you're on a guest list and you receive a ticket at the box office that

is something that i have to handle throughout the day overseeing all the guests pre and post show taking care of vip guests coordinating after show hangouts food for the after show guests

booze for the after show guests ordering and managing all band supplies that they might need on the road band-aids pantyhose any little thing that comes up that they need for the stage is my responsibility

to get i host a security meeting if there's no security manager that's on the road with us so we can go through the venue emergency plans just in case something goes wrong i'm

responsible for pass sheets and wristband managements again when there's not a security personnel on the road on the road with us that usually happens with larger bands they bring out

security mid to small bands won't typically travel with security so that's something that would fall into the umbrella of the production team we use google calendar to update the band

travel and the venue info and the crew travel and the venue info we handle rooming lists plane tickets visa management and anything else that you can think of that would come up during the day

i list out all these things just to make it clear that the production team really does handle every little detail when you're on the road this is something that most people are not even aware of

it definitely wasn't told to me when i first started doing it um it's not something that typically comes up but it is very accurate to what our day to day is like i hope you guys

enjoyed the first part of this video for the second part please make sure to tune in to patrick and friends next week

[Music] you