Producing a Rock Show at Ryan Says…

When I first volunteered for this job I thought it would be a bit of fun, and a good chance to meet INXS and hopefully make some connections in the music biz. It did end up being all that, but it was also a *lot* of hard work. I have a lot more respect now for the crew that put together big rock shows.

I’m referring to an INXS show I helped organize last Friday. It was put on by ‘Advance’, a networking group for Australian professionals abroad. Because of my own experience in a band, I was delegated the duties of organizing all production aspects (stage, sound, lighting etc). Fortunately, through my band and other contacts, I met some great people without whom I could not have pulled this show together. I had a great advisor who was spending every spare moment he had on the phone with me and his connections lining up some really good deals on equipment and crew, despite the fact he was on tour with another artist and was staging an event at Madison Square Garden the same night. I also had a fantastic technical supervisor and monitor engineer, and a great FOH guy. The show went off flawlessly (despite some initial nervousness when the sound check that was scheduled for 4pm didn’t happen until 6pm), with tonnes of great feedback from the crowd and other organizers.

Just to give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes - there are a *lot* of people involved, all moving at lightning speeds to get everything together for what is a relatively short set. Here’s a day in the life:

9am - arrived at the venue.
9:45 - stage arrived (32×16 foot stage in 4×8 pieces). Start loading in the pieces with a crew of 4 or 5 people.
10am - INXS crew arrive (what? The stage hasn’t even been built yet, why are they here so early). Two guitar techs, a drum tech and a gear tech.
12pm - Stage is basically built. INXS crew truck and my backline gear truck are waiting to get in. Switcheroo and we start loading in sound gear. LOTS of heavy speakers, amps, mixing boards…
12:30pm - Switcheroo again, now load in INXS gear - amps, instruments etc
1:00pm - Lunch break. Much needed
1:30pm - Lighting arrives, load in
1:30-6pm - craziness as INXS crew and my stage, sound and lighting crew run around setting up things on stage, connecting, line checking, sound checking etc. Band arrives sometime around 4pm, hangs out in the dressing room while everything is set up. Meanwhile catering arrives, setting up tables, bringing in food, beer, wine…
6pm - Band sound check - after some level adjustments, sounds awesome! Band leaves in their limos. Final setting up of the venue. Setup DJ, get some music playing, clean up stray boxes and gear cases etc.
7:30pm - Venue opens, crowd pours in, drinking, eating, music.
9pm - Band returns, back into their dressing room.
10pm - Time flies. Time for the band to go on already. This is where I relax and enjoy the show. Absolutely fantastic performance. New singer is awesome. I Think this band will rise again.
10:45pm - Band is done. Short set. Congratulated the sound guys for an awesome job. Went backstage, congratulated the band for an awesome job. Had a good chat with JD, complemented him on his stage presence. Also had a good chat with Kirk about this awesome frankenstein guitar he plays (Ibanez body, Strat neck, Les Paul pickups), and my budding band etc. Very cool guy.
11pm - Back out onto the floor. Event runs until 1am, but we start tearing down the sound because we have a tight load-out schedule. The band crew is anxious to get their gear out, they have to be on a 5:30 flight the next morning. Their manager harasses me for stage hands to help, so I give him a couple of guys. Band is out by midnight.
12:30 - Lights up, event finishes a little early. Sound is all torn down, some last packing into cases and we start loading into the truck.
2am - Sound is loaded and sound guys leave. Stage guy arrives - tear down stage and load out by 3am (the deadline).
3am - Tired, sore, but buzzed after an awesome night, I drive home.

Obviously I barely touched any of the details here, but you can see that for a 45 minute set, we had a sizable crew working from 9am to 3am just to pull it off. And people in this biz do it night after night, amazing.

I’m happy to go back to my own little band. We might not have rockstar status, but at least we can setup and tear down in an hour :) And hopefully when we do get rockstar status we will have a crew to do it all for us.

A fun experience overall, great opportunity to meet the band, but I wont mind at all if I dont have to organize another show like this for a while :)