Thursday, March 14, 2019
Hitting The Road: Touring Etiquette For The Uninitiated
ProSoundWeb: Going on a large-scale tour for the first time is a daunting experience. Thrown together in close quarters with a bunch of people you’ve never met before, the days are long, you’re away from home, and you’re never in one place for long before it’s time to load out and move on.
On top of that there’s a whole touring etiquette that you may never have encountered before – ways of behavior that are instinctual to long-time roadies but which offer many potential pitfalls for the uninitiated.
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While much of this advice is specific to touring, I think it can extend to almost any situation. Clean up after yourself, be polite, be on time, respect people’s privacy, respect that people who know more than you know more than you, remember that other people are people. Obviously this article is the most relevant to touring, but the underlying principles can be applied to any new job. As of now I’m not anticipating touring, but I will keep these rules in the back of my mind since there is a decent possibility I will end up briefly on tours even if I’m not touring for an extended period of time, and you never know what will happen down the road. If/when I do find myself on tour, I’ll try my best to follow these rules. I’m glad someone put them out there for people to learn them by reading this article rather than learn them the hard way.
I have to agree with what Julian said, while this article was geared towards people going into the touring industry for the first time, the lessons are applicable to many other areas of your life. The article goes over common courtesy that everyone should extend to other people in your life. The touring industry is one that has always had my interest. I love to travel to see the world and meet the people that come along with it. The time I got to work for the Ed Sheeran touring crew during strike, I learned a lot about the type of people that work on the road and got a glimpse into the lifestyle that is associated with that industry. While the rules that the article put in place were not new to hear, it is refreshing to hear that there are still people that work and live with strangers and manage to be perfectly civil.
Ok first thing. How many people actually sleep butt naked? Really especially not at a hotel, where I have no idea where the sheets have been even if they have been cleaned. Most of these tips and tricks are really just common sense and a good way to act whenever entering a hierarchical environment. I guess these are things that I just knew or have learned being in these type of environments. The road life to me is fascinating. Will I ever do it, hopefully not, the only tour I want are the checks when it goes on its second UK tour. That is when I want to be part of the tour. Pretentious, a little, but that’s how I want it. I have listened to many interviews with actors going on a tour for the first time, and it is fascinating for them to adjust to changing location every couple weeks. My friend got the Disney on Ice tour as the host the week before high school ended and watching her on social media tour the country and experience the most fascinating places all over the country.
I would definitely say a lot of these points seem like things that should just be common knowledge and professionalism in almost any circumstance in the theatre or entertainment industry. With that being said, I also see how some of these rules and guidelines have translated into the touring circuit, as one of my best friends from high school has been jumping around for month long positions on tour. It has been interesting learning about what it is like to be on tour from how he speaks about it and how these guidelines do translate over to the world that he has been experiencing. I personally am not sure if touring is something I could ever really see myself doing, but regardless of that, I think the information in this article can translate to numerous portions of the entertainment industry, and will be sure to remember that as I approach any new internship or job.
Like everyone else has said in the comments, a lot of these tips are really just geared for working professionally in your jobs throughout life. Don’t be an asshole, clean up after yourself, and be respectful of those around you. My lighting teacher from my high school toured for pretty much his entire career, so I’ve heard so many stories and even snagged a couple shirts from some of my favorite bands he’s toured with. As something I mentioned in my last comment about the MEIM program, I really want to work in the music business. Touring within that has always been on my mind because I love music, traveling, and doing the work that goes along with it. Of course I will keep these tips in mind within whatever field or path I go down because the writer has so much experience, it’s coming from a very helpful point of view.
I thought this post was very interesting because I have never been on a tour so I don’t know how anything works, so I learned a lot of new things but I also think some things in this article were very obvious things that anyone should know going into a new work environment whether that being on tour or not. It is honestly kind of shocking that people need to be constantly reminded of things like “don’t be a know it all” in a new work environment and just basically be respectful to everyone you are working with. I found all of the advice about all of the etiquette that is needed on the tour bus very interesting because I have never worked on a tour bus so that was reading about a work environment I have never encountered which I always find very interesting. The touring life just sounds so interesting and after reading this article I got a little idea of what it is really like to be on tour which was very enlightening.
I know very little about the touring industry and so this article provided interesting insight into the "home life" of someone on tour. Authough, as previously mentioned by everyone, many of the tips were common sense there were a few that stood out as particularly interesting to me. For instance being very careful what pictures you take and share, or leaving time for a line at the hotel were less obvious tips for a newcomer. I thought the author could have formatted the article a bit better. It was nice how she broke it down into categories with stuff about the buss and stuff about people, and stuff about boundaries, but it was unclear when reading if she was intending to transition or add on to her previous statement, like she does later in the article. Overall if I ever find myself on tour I will certainly think back to this article.
Touring always has seemed like an interesting road to follow, lots of traveling, and new experiences but I do imagine that it can be really difficult in some ways. That forever moving lifestyle with such a large group of people in typically a really confined space could be problematic with close friends never mind a group of strangers. That is where I think that understanding some of the standard etiquette can be helpful for someone who is new to the industry. Now I would hope that the rules of the touring world are largely unspoken because for me all of the rules discussed seem like pretty standard be a decent human being concepts that shouldn’t have to be spelled out to adults, but it is understandable that people who are in a stressful situation of starting a new job may be worried and forgetful of these sorts of basic standards. It is also just nice to have a written list to fall back on if you are uncertain, I’m sure this is not an end all be all list but it is solid and a good start for any company.
The touring industry has always intrigued me and I really want to do it, but as a production assistant or an equity stage manager-- they get to be on the plane. That being said, I do think that there is a specific charm that goes into being on a bus and just traveling around with a bunch of people that you barely know. Personally, I think that touring can get very lonely and sometimes depressing with stagehands just buying cigarettes in every town they go to. I wish this article touched on that side of the industry, but I see the point they're trying to get across. I echo Lauren's comment about a lot of these things being normal adult rules of common courtesy and manners, but its good to get it all in writing just in case someone may not have known. The rules of cleaning up after yourself, is definitely that a lot of people need help with-- and its not passing judgement-- its just that a lot of people fall into habits after long days of becoming a slob, which is fine in your own home, but I guarantee that someone else doesn't share the same habit.
This article made a few interesting points that are valuable but also I feel like this is good advice for anyone starting out in the industry. Not being a know-it-all is something that everyone has been talking about since the first time that I talked about jobs. Another common sense thing is to be clean. No one likes working with a slob whether it be touring or in an office. The one thing that did surprise me is about not taking pictures of the set before the show has begun and not expecting to take people backstage. This makes complete sense but I think this is something so above anything I’ve ever worked on that I’ve never really thought about. Working on school productions and community theatre, nothing is too high stakes and I as continue throughout the industry, it will be interesting as the stakes get higher and the shows go into a larger scale what other things, I will have to do such as signing non-disclosure forms and other security measures like walking through a metal detector to get to work.
As many people before me have mentioned, many of these things should be (I hope are) common sense, and they should be applied to a professional practice beyond just touring. It always strikes me as odd that each time I open one of these articles with a sort of dos and don’ts list and am surprised that I haven’t found anything revolutionary. I think that the biggest thing that we need to strive for is self-awareness. The fact that so many of these lists are lessons taught early in life or in other articles and such and they continue to appear so consistently is evident that we are all, each to our own extent, being lazy in terms of our own accountability for our actions and awareness of the reception that others have of us. These are things that I think we should all be pushed even further to be aware of in school. You can see it often. We get emails constantly about our spaces being a mess, our behavior being below par, and whatnot, but I have hope that we are learning and becoming more aware of our effects on others.
I found this article really intriguing as I have always been interested in going on tour after graduation. While back at home I did work on a lot of traditional theater, I was always more interested in things like events and tours. To me, a lot of these types of things are less cookie cutter and less straight forward per se. This is not to say that every production of a specific show is the same, making it cookie cutter, but something like an event in a venue not meant for theater may require you to completely design how you are going to power and hang lights, etc. Things like this require a lot of on the spot thinking and problem solving, something I enjoy doing. In touring, you may run into situations that require this kind of thought as you are changing to a different venue all the time. This may be especially true with rigging as not all arena ceilings have places to hang points in the exact location as another arena.
I agree with the consensus in the comments that these tips are mostly common sense for interacting in a workplace- show up on time, respect the knowledge of people who have been there longer than you, clean yourself appropriately, etc. I think that keeping these in mind is especially important while working on a touring crew simply because of the constant proximity to one another (although the same could be said for us right now, living on campus). I thought the article did give an interesting picture of some of the logistics of touring life, and did mention some things I hadn’t thought about, such as not posting backstage pictures. That’s never been something I’ve thought about before due to the comparatively small scale of everything I’ve worked on, but I can definitely see how protecting the privacy of the performers and integrity of the show could be an issue.
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