Tour Managers and Industry Training
I thought this post would be rather fitting with the new RS tour beginning. The role of a tour manager having more responsibilities than anyone could imagine. A fun. Yet stressful job. Most tour managers will tell you they love their job, because in context its a cool job to have and tour managers are classed as “Lucky” people.
To be a tour manager you need to be comfortable with travelling otherwise your pretty much doomed from the start! And being away from home for extended periods of time, just like the band. In some cases, you will not be away for as long as you may be within distance to actually go home at the end of a long day and others you will be too far across the otherside of the world. The role of a tour manager is not sitting in an office to plan tours all day, its much more work. You do spend time within an office, but your also out there and making sure things run to plan.
It is your job to be organised! It’s like being the band’s parents. Making sure their ready, everything is ready, and that they are looked after during the tour. Its the band’s job to make the music. It is your job to keep it rolling. Working as a tour manager can be a lot of fun. You get to travel extensively and see some great shows. BUT , it is also a great deal of responsibility and if you cannot handle pressure, you may find it extremely tough. To be a good tour manager, you must be organised, flexible, able to keep your cool, be good at time keeping as well as being able to fulfill requests that may sometimes seem unreasonable or seem impossible. How difficult the job is really depends on the group of people you are out on the road with, if its a small band, you may have less of a stressful time, still stressful just a little less. Bands such as Bon Jovi, require a LOT of hard work in order to make it happen. If everyone has a good working relationship on a tour, for instance the band manager with the tour manager, touring crew etc, the job will be much easier than if you have to manage a group of people who have a lot of personal drama or who don’t take their jobs seriously.
As stated previously the tour manager is responsible for keeping a tour on track. The tour manager coordinates every aspect of the artists tour from transportation for the band and crew, hotels and meals, to accounts, income, booking venues, hiring and firing crew, and show cancellations if the case maybe. Tours almost always are on a tight timeline and schedules need to be kept exact from interviews, TV recordings, magazine shoots, radio interviews, so it is the tour managers job to ensure that the artist arrives on time to each and every task, and to make sure everything goes to schedule. Ever seen an artist rush into a car and not stop to sign things? Schedule! As much as the artist would probably love to stop and chat if they are that kind of person, unfortunately sometimes time is not their best friend. And they are most likely needing to be at a venue/interview in a certain time frame. If things run too far behind, the result can be cancelled shows and even legal disputes. As mentioned earlier, good business skills are a must as well if your wanting to go into tour management.
Atleast 95% percent of the tour managers currently working have had previous experience on the road either as a stage hand, technicians or even just drivers. Any other previous management experience is extremely helpful even with running a company as well as good technical skills when it comes to dealing with artists equipment, if something goes wrong and your the only one at hand (Should never happen! But incase it did!) having techical knowledge and how to fix it is very very helpful!
Start working as soon as you can in technical! EXPERIENCE IS VITAL. There are concert venues, theaters and production companies all over the world, and many places will take on interns, its just a case of asking. Internships, like in many other career fields, are important to get experience in the production field because without experience, you wont get far within the production industry!. The types of problems you could run into on the road are endless and could never be taught in school as a technical production student now, even with all the current work Im doing, I still need a LOT of experience and opportunities and without asking, you wont get. Experience is the only way to learn you way around them. Other types of experience would include managing a local band and booking shows for them or even starting a band yourself. The more experience around live music you have, the better you chances are to get into technical and progressing into tour management.
If you can get into a technical production degree, or a technical theater course. It helps if you have no experience. They can help you with the basics, and help you find contacts. College is doing a great job of teaching me basic skills, but 90% of my training comes from actually doing it. I have been volunteering for local gigs, and joining in with local technical companies for shows. Even if your not getting paid. We all have to start somewhere. You cannot learn all of these things in school. However, stay in school and at least get a well-rounded education before you jump into the industry!
TheTECHtotheMUSIC 