In intermittent period I have largely been doing two things; Working and trying to find more working....work.
When people ask me what I do at gigs and I tell them "usually a combination of show advancement and stage management" this usually garners a couple of raised eyebrows and the question "what's that then?". So I thought I would say what they are here and then in the future I can just refer people here. In the interest of sanity I will try and make this as jargon free as possible, I will also try and insert some advice to unsigned bands because I am nice like that.
Show advancement is what happens when the deal has been done. Promoters, tour reps, bookers and venue managers all get together and do theirjobs (which I wont go over here as it wouldn't do justice) and from this a concert or series of them is arranged, advertising is done, tickets are sold and all prepare for an enjoyable and profitable evening. What show advancement entails is making sure, this then happens and that everybody has everything they need to make this happen.
In more detail they fall into the following categories:
Technical Rider: What you need to provide from a technical aspect to make the show happen. This will almost certainly involve a Public Address system of some sort a Front of house mixing desk and a monitor mixing desk. The bigger the show the bigger the requirements. Particularly large artists may ask you to provide amplifiers yourself and Chuck Berry insists on a psychic 30 piece band, that know his entire back catalogue and must be able to guess what song he is going to play next because he wont tell them in advance. Conversely to this at large festivals the production crew may tell the bands lower down in the line up what equipment they are allowed to use as this will then be shared between them all to speed change over times only allowing the head liners to use their own gear.
Chances are if you're just starting out you wont be making many demands. However do use a technical rider to tell people what you are bringing or more accurately not bringing. If you are not bringing a bass amp and drum shells, say so. This allows arrangements to be made well in advance. Conversely if you will be bringing a bass amp and drum shells you will mysteriously end up being booked for more shows by your local promoter, allow other people to use them to and you will also mysteriously end up getting pretty decent gigs. No really, making it so local bookers don't have to phone round every band asking whether or not they're bringing a bass amp will pay dividends, even if you're rubbish.
Channel List: A spreadsheet that details how many signals will be going from things that make noise (outputs) into things that make them louder (mixing desk and amplification). Particularly fancy ones will details what microphones are preferred, whether this signal needs to be monitor mixed (do the people on stage need assistance hearing it through the wedges on stage) whether it needs a phantom channel (I have no idea what this means either) and other technical requirements as well.
Now this used to be a fairly simple process as every band was the same. Namely there were two guitarists, a bass player, a drummer and maybe some of them sing. These were simpler times. Now as more and more equipment is stuffed onto a stage and everyone has at least one mac book, some kind of bontempi organ from a car boot sale, a good five keyboards, samplers, sequencers and a whole host of other electronic trickery channel lists are fast becoming huge. Some bands even go so far as to plug all of these things into their own mixing desk on stage and one of them handles everything giving the sound engineers only one input cable for about 15 different assorted instruments. These people are gods in my opinion as they save a lot of time, but it's not always appropriate so having an accurate channel list is an absolute must as it lets people know how much work they need to do in limited periods of time and enables them to have everything prepared in advance saving that most precious of commodities; time.
A good channel list will make sound engineers hate you less. They will hate you a little bit, but that's just part of being a sound engineer.
It will also help avoid statements like "what do you mean you don't have 32 plug sockets on stage?"
Stage plot: The stage plot is in essence a handy diagram showing where bands are going to put everything on stage. Sounds fairly innocuous but it is an incredibly hand thing to have. Firstly it's a visual aid and they always help, plus they will give information like how many mic stands are going to be needed and where everything is and therefore where all of the cables need to be. Essentially it works alongside the Channel list to complete the picture.
Dear unsigned bands: Have a stage plot. Spend some time on it and you will only have to do it once or until you buy a new glockenspiel that you just have to incorporate into your set for one song.
Lastly Schedule: This is in many ways the most important of all information provided by a venue. It will state load in times, sound check times, door times and stage times. Stick to them. Certain bitter stage managers (not me of course) will say that musicians need to have times adjusted by about two hours to make them turn up on time now whereas I would never be so jaded as to make statements like that it is true that timings are generally the first place to slip. If you can not make the time's given, which for the unsigned band is entirely possible given that you most likely have a day job as well, let people know. Things can be adjusted and moved around. Chances are there will be some sitting around to be done, but similarly if you are there and somebody else decides not to turn up on time you can purloin that stage time for yourself and garner yourselves a sound check rather than just the line check you were going to have.
Like wise with stage times. Most venues now have their entertainment licenses very strictly enforced and the time you are given on stage will be cut short if you take too long getting everything up there. I can remember when I first started doing this ten years ago bands would be told "you have thirty minutes" now it is very much the case that you are told "you have till 8:30". Once you're finished the most likely thing you will want to do is have a beer and chat up that red head, but don't just yet! Get everything off as fast as possible, in all honesty you should and must be able to strip the stage of your gear in about 5 minutes. Get a reputation for being on time and setting up/stripping stages in a timely fashion and again that mysterious promoter effect will kick in.
Well that's about it I think for now. Technical riders and scheduling documents are not the most exciting things in the world but they do make shows happen smoothly.
That said I did recently come across the finest written rider known to man, have a look not only will it give you a good idea of what I mean by all of this but it is also genuinely hilarious in places.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1004061iggypop1.html
TTFN - DFTBA
