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Friday, December 07, 2018
Roundtable: The Wild, Weird & Fun World Of Technical Riders
ProSoundWeb: “What’s the strangest (weird, interesting, funny, etc.) thing you’ve ever seen requested on a rider?” Let’s see what our panel of audio professionals has to say.
10 comments:
Margaret Shumate
said...
Some of these are hilarious, although they don’t seem very effective ways to do things. I guess if your primary goal is for the performance to be loud, 25,000 watts gets the point across, but even then, an spl threshold would be a better metric. Even considering that, loudness seems like a really terrible primary goal. Most of the rest of these are just people being careless or apathetic or ignorant when making riders. It’s astonishing to me how frequent it seems that out of date or innaccurate riders are submitted. You would think that if you want something from a venue, you would make sure your paperwork is correct. Biggest takeaway, I should probably learn how to properly mic a chainsaw, it appears to be a surprisingly common occurrence. I suppose it should probably just be miked like a snare drum, that seems like the closest instrument in terms of tone quality. SM57 never fails.
I have always been interested by riders, partially because I am nosey a like to know people's preferences and also because many people do have fun with the document and put silly things in. I have personally seen a handful of riders while working at summer stock and other places, nothing really of note was in them just basic information. I recommend people make them more interesting because that list will probably eventually get passed down to an intern to take care of all the small details, so amuse them. I think the chain saw as an instrument is interesting, especially how they used it to saw a stool in half. In general I am not surprised that people are not having too much to say in terms of sound on riders, rarely will someone want something that is out of the ordinary, because the chances of it happening will be much less.
This is a fun anecdotal article. I enjoyed reading about the crazy technical aspects in different riders. Reading about the unique items that needed to be mic presents was fascinating. I was surprised that two people had been asked to to mic a chainsaw. A major problem that was mentioned was that often times out of date information is given to crews. Not only does it waste time and people’s hours, it could potentially lead to the venue having the wrong items or there could be problem that can not be changed with the allowable resources. I also thought the story of the custom mic was really interesting. Rather the try to get the correct mic, the previous venues had picked a different mic and told them it was the asked for mic. I’ll be curious to see what technology becomes common in riders as technology changes in the future.
Tech riders can be very useful, and i think that many times we get caught up in the drama of what funny or confusing thing that many people can put in them that we forget to talk about their importance in touring a show. I know in my talks with many people here and in other places they do not know what they need to be sure gets into a tech rider packet. Writing one from scratch is an excellent way to start laying out all the information that is required but one never truly knows what you have forgotten until you get into the space and see you now have four hours of work ahead of you to get to the point you thought the stage would be when you walked in. Needless to say, this type of thing has happened to me for two reasons. First and more common is the venue not correctly reading and prepping the space, but a few times it has also been because a key small thing hasn't made it through all the checks and got left off. We need to teach this more!!
I absolutely love reading tech riders. I think they are obviously important to make sure that everything goes well on an often really short turnaround or setup shows, such as touring bands and the like, but I also find them to be really entertaining to read in general. I have, like most people, heard the brown m&ms story and how it is often a test to make sure that the venue is actually reading the rider and not just skimming it and missing important details. I did agree with one of the last comments that nothing is more irritating than an out of date rider or paperwork. Having to redo an entire setup because someone forgot to forward along a piece of paper would drive me crazy, and also seems like a large waste of time on everyone's part. I overall thought this article was pretty informative, especially with all the different first person perspectives.
The "no brown M&Ms" is a prime example of how wacky riders can be. In Molly's class last year we took a look at some crazy riders, and the things that people try to slip in blew my mind. Whether it be a huge amount of snacks you know they'll never eat, new furniture, or even live animals there can be some strange demands that have to be met. The weirdest one in this article to me was the mic for the chainsaw. They're so loud anyway so I don't see why they would even need a mic, but obviously it was an important part of their act. A lot of people on this thread and in the article mentioned that these crazy inclusions tend to typically be to see if the person going over the rider is actually reading it. If you find something in a rider that you know you can't do you can more often that not talk to the act or group's agent about negotiating it out, though I would imagine with bigger stars this is harder to do.
Riders are fun. They can indeed be wild, weird and fun. But they are not so fun when you have to translate it. The most annoying part was the units—when will this country learn that metric system is the universal unit? Some of the memorable parts from the riders that I translated are a dance company requesting many lemons and bananas in the dressing rooms because dancers only eat them before performance, a quartet requesting specific kinds of stools/chairs onstage and a band requesting ‘American style food’ to be provided. The last part bothered me. What is American style food anyways? It listed out lunch and dinner buffet menu for each day of the week like chicken Caesar salad, and salmon steak. There was even a list of acceptable soda kinds like coke, sprite, mountain dew and etc. I understand that the rider is for the comfort and benefit of the band members. But really, some stuffs on the tech riders are unnecessary.
Reading riders was one of my biggest jobs this past summer working with events. Mind you, I was dealing with people at a much smaller scale than these large rock and roll celebrities. But I still got some funny stuff. One person wouldn’t accept any catering, taxi rides, anything really, that wasn’t coming from a company owned by a woman or person of color. I also had one that was sent to me in the body of an email. No PDF, not even in complete sentences. Just a list of bullet points in an email. Overall, though, thoroughly reading riders is important. It’s how you are certain you have everything you need for a successful show. Something small, like ‘No brown M&Ms’ is an easy task and it shows you are paying attention. And something silly, like a chainsaw, may seem like a mistake, but it could be a very important part of the show.
My favorite thing we talked about in PPM last year were riders because I loved reading them and I loved thinking about what would go in mine if I could have one. I understand the original purpose of tech riders because really every act has a specific set of needs and an artist needs specific things to be able to do their jobs well. Sometimes people have food allergies or children and their spaces need to be set up accordingly so that is a great use for riders. But to say I only want green m&m's in a bowl or I need the floor to be re-carpeted a different color every single time that a new person comes in is just too much. I feel like the most miserable job I could ever have would be working at a concert venue changing the riders to make sure that they are good for each act. There is so much pressure to get it right and can you even imagine if you messed something up and Beyonce was disappointed in you. Thats too much pressure for anyone.
This was a really entertaining article to read and to hear about the craziest requests by band members. I think this illustrates why riders are so important- every performing group is different and will have different needs. The chainsaw example (or exampleS- it’s really interesting that not one but two different bands decided to use a chainsaw as an instrument and needed it mic’d) goes to show this- it would probably be pretty easy to guess what kind of support a performer needs, except for when they have requests like these. No matter how wild they may seem, it’s important for us to do our best to fulfil those technical requests. I also was glad to see the Van Halen brown M’n’M example on there, which I’d heard about before- I think it’s a pretty sneaky way of ensuring that their requests are met. From reading this I do wish some performers were slightly more realistic in their requests- the one about the sweet 16 party that was never used just seemed annoying- but for legitimate technical needs I think reading and following a rider is very important.
10 comments:
Some of these are hilarious, although they don’t seem very effective ways to do things. I guess if your primary goal is for the performance to be loud, 25,000 watts gets the point across, but even then, an spl threshold would be a better metric. Even considering that, loudness seems like a really terrible primary goal. Most of the rest of these are just people being careless or apathetic or ignorant when making riders. It’s astonishing to me how frequent it seems that out of date or innaccurate riders are submitted. You would think that if you want something from a venue, you would make sure your paperwork is correct. Biggest takeaway, I should probably learn how to properly mic a chainsaw, it appears to be a surprisingly common occurrence. I suppose it should probably just be miked like a snare drum, that seems like the closest instrument in terms of tone quality. SM57 never fails.
I have always been interested by riders, partially because I am nosey a like to know people's preferences and also because many people do have fun with the document and put silly things in. I have personally seen a handful of riders while working at summer stock and other places, nothing really of note was in them just basic information. I recommend people make them more interesting because that list will probably eventually get passed down to an intern to take care of all the small details, so amuse them. I think the chain saw as an instrument is interesting, especially how they used it to saw a stool in half. In general I am not surprised that people are not having too much to say in terms of sound on riders, rarely will someone want something that is out of the ordinary, because the chances of it happening will be much less.
This is a fun anecdotal article. I enjoyed reading about the crazy technical aspects in different riders. Reading about the unique items that needed to be mic presents was fascinating. I was surprised that two people had been asked to to mic a chainsaw. A major problem that was mentioned was that often times out of date information is given to crews. Not only does it waste time and people’s hours, it could potentially lead to the venue having the wrong items or there could be problem that can not be changed with the allowable resources. I also thought the story of the custom mic was really interesting. Rather the try to get the correct mic, the previous venues had picked a different mic and told them it was the asked for mic. I’ll be curious to see what technology becomes common in riders as technology changes in the future.
Tech riders can be very useful, and i think that many times we get caught up in the drama of what funny or confusing thing that many people can put in them that we forget to talk about their importance in touring a show. I know in my talks with many people here and in other places they do not know what they need to be sure gets into a tech rider packet. Writing one from scratch is an excellent way to start laying out all the information that is required but one never truly knows what you have forgotten until you get into the space and see you now have four hours of work ahead of you to get to the point you thought the stage would be when you walked in. Needless to say, this type of thing has happened to me for two reasons. First and more common is the venue not correctly reading and prepping the space, but a few times it has also been because a key small thing hasn't made it through all the checks and got left off. We need to teach this more!!
I absolutely love reading tech riders. I think they are obviously important to make sure that everything goes well on an often really short turnaround or setup shows, such as touring bands and the like, but I also find them to be really entertaining to read in general. I have, like most people, heard the brown m&ms story and how it is often a test to make sure that the venue is actually reading the rider and not just skimming it and missing important details. I did agree with one of the last comments that nothing is more irritating than an out of date rider or paperwork. Having to redo an entire setup because someone forgot to forward along a piece of paper would drive me crazy, and also seems like a large waste of time on everyone's part. I overall thought this article was pretty informative, especially with all the different first person perspectives.
The "no brown M&Ms" is a prime example of how wacky riders can be. In Molly's class last year we took a look at some crazy riders, and the things that people try to slip in blew my mind. Whether it be a huge amount of snacks you know they'll never eat, new furniture, or even live animals there can be some strange demands that have to be met. The weirdest one in this article to me was the mic for the chainsaw. They're so loud anyway so I don't see why they would even need a mic, but obviously it was an important part of their act. A lot of people on this thread and in the article mentioned that these crazy inclusions tend to typically be to see if the person going over the rider is actually reading it. If you find something in a rider that you know you can't do you can more often that not talk to the act or group's agent about negotiating it out, though I would imagine with bigger stars this is harder to do.
Riders are fun. They can indeed be wild, weird and fun. But they are not so fun when you have to translate it. The most annoying part was the units—when will this country learn that metric system is the universal unit? Some of the memorable parts from the riders that I translated are a dance company requesting many lemons and bananas in the dressing rooms because dancers only eat them before performance, a quartet requesting specific kinds of stools/chairs onstage and a band requesting ‘American style food’ to be provided. The last part bothered me. What is American style food anyways? It listed out lunch and dinner buffet menu for each day of the week like chicken Caesar salad, and salmon steak. There was even a list of acceptable soda kinds like coke, sprite, mountain dew and etc. I understand that the rider is for the comfort and benefit of the band members. But really, some stuffs on the tech riders are unnecessary.
Reading riders was one of my biggest jobs this past summer working with events. Mind you, I was dealing with people at a much smaller scale than these large rock and roll celebrities. But I still got some funny stuff. One person wouldn’t accept any catering, taxi rides, anything really, that wasn’t coming from a company owned by a woman or person of color. I also had one that was sent to me in the body of an email. No PDF, not even in complete sentences. Just a list of bullet points in an email. Overall, though, thoroughly reading riders is important. It’s how you are certain you have everything you need for a successful show. Something small, like ‘No brown M&Ms’ is an easy task and it shows you are paying attention. And something silly, like a chainsaw, may seem like a mistake, but it could be a very important part of the show.
My favorite thing we talked about in PPM last year were riders because I loved reading them and I loved thinking about what would go in mine if I could have one. I understand the original purpose of tech riders because really every act has a specific set of needs and an artist needs specific things to be able to do their jobs well. Sometimes people have food allergies or children and their spaces need to be set up accordingly so that is a great use for riders. But to say I only want green m&m's in a bowl or I need the floor to be re-carpeted a different color every single time that a new person comes in is just too much. I feel like the most miserable job I could ever have would be working at a concert venue changing the riders to make sure that they are good for each act. There is so much pressure to get it right and can you even imagine if you messed something up and Beyonce was disappointed in you. Thats too much pressure for anyone.
This was a really entertaining article to read and to hear about the craziest requests by band members. I think this illustrates why riders are so important- every performing group is different and will have different needs. The chainsaw example (or exampleS- it’s really interesting that not one but two different bands decided to use a chainsaw as an instrument and needed it mic’d) goes to show this- it would probably be pretty easy to guess what kind of support a performer needs, except for when they have requests like these. No matter how wild they may seem, it’s important for us to do our best to fulfil those technical requests. I also was glad to see the Van Halen brown M’n’M example on there, which I’d heard about before- I think it’s a pretty sneaky way of ensuring that their requests are met. From reading this I do wish some performers were slightly more realistic in their requests- the one about the sweet 16 party that was never used just seemed annoying- but for legitimate technical needs I think reading and following a rider is very important.
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