ProSoundWebThe opportunity to tour off the beaten track sounds exotic and exciting, a chance to go to places that you’d never see otherwise and get paid for the privilege. While you’ll certainly have unique experiences and return home a more capable engineer, touring in developing countries can be extremely challenging.
I’ve been touring in unusual territories for 15 years and I’ve just returned home from a tour of Southeast Asia with my current band, so I’ve picked up a few tips over the years. I hope sharing them here will help make your experience of touring off the usual circuit a little smoother.
13 comments:
This article is very interesting to read, as I have never thought about touring in less-developed countries with a band. It just never occurred to me that people do this, but that's to say its not a bad idea. I actually think it's a great idea. Touring shows can help stimulate the economies of the developing countries, while also providing its resident's with culturally diverse music and a connection to the outside world. Most artists travel only to big cities or countries, and rarely do they travel to other areas that are removed from the well-traveled path. I think this article is great for artists and their technicians when traveling to less-developed countries or cities. The information presented is very useful and full of surprises, like the stage gods monument. I also love that the author is a women audio technician who has toured with various artists over the past 20 years. To be able to travel and bring the entertainment of music to those who don't normally hear it, is just icing on the cake as well.
When I saw the title of this article I was expecting to see better tips if I'm going to be honest. While it's nice to know that venues abroad may need more persuasion to get the full story when it comes to equipment, I feel like that's pretty common knowledge. When working with any venue that you're unfamiliar with there is a margin for error which you should take into account. Specific software, updates, models from different production years. It's nothing new to double-check the materials they have versus what you need to bring as well as bringing extra equipment for in case of failure or just generally in case it's needed. For any touring show, this is vital. If you don't want to stress at the last minute, triple check and always be prepared. It's as simple as that. While I was hoping for more in-depth tips it is nice to know that these simple and widely used practices are enough to successfully pull off a show in the developing world. This dedication to creating the desired experience despite the lack of adequately equipped spaces is admirable as it attempts to bring enjoyment and new culture or experiences to underserved areas.
Touring on a route that is off the beaten path definitely sounds like an interesting experience. I think it would be intriguing because of the differences you would experience and making it through I think you would certainly be a more experienced technician at the end of it. Of course I’m sure the same re-occurring issues coming up over and over again would be draining and almost certainly the things that keep the tour interesting would also work to make it frustrating. However the opportunity to tour in these places is an appealing option (to some not everyone). I also think that the advice given for touring in the off the beaten path places is really just solid advice for any sort of touring application. Pre-planning and clear communication to have a better idea of what you are walking into when you get there and knowing that it is much easier to just say yes to everything on a rider than communicate that some things don’t match exactly to the specifications given out. Touring seems a bit chaotic but like a great learning experience I was tempted this summer to take a year off in the program and go on a tour that the company I worked for was organizing but decided against it.
For some reason this reminds me of the Fyre Festival. I know there were much more issues there than having the challenges of putting on a show in a less developed country. Though, some of the issues that occurred in Exuma may have been easily remedied if they were in, say, the United States. For starters, the people would not have been stuck there, or it would have been easier to solve the living and eating issues. I digress. I think the most important point here is to get ahead and be proactive. Being able to scope out the land days, or even months, in advanced can save a lot of the trouble. You won't enter surprised and there may not be as many unusual tour-related problems occurring. You never know what you are walking into. Something as simple as the locals not wanting you there can be something causing major problems, but that can be prevented if you get ahead and see that it is not safe there. The idea of touring in a less developed area sounds so thrilling. But there are reasons that people tour in the same places or areas over and over.
I love theater so much. The main reason why I am so passionate about theater is because of how it interacts with the audience. To me, theater is nothing without its audience. This is why I love it when shows can tour and can just be more accessible to people in general. A whole other issue with this is how expensive tickets can get, but this article discusses only the difficulties of getting to travel to other locations. The most important part about any relationship (this includes personal relationships and business relationships) is how strong your communication is. If you are planning on taking a show to somewhere you haven't previously been, it is crucial to be communicative about what your needs, precautions, and regulations are, as well as understanding the limits and rules of the other place. If a company can't give you specific details, their either are hiding something, or don't know what they are doing and how to use equipment properly. So, in summary, when touring a show, since there are many new places you go to, the most important part is to have strong communication skills.
-Pablo Anton
I love the idea of bands touring around less developed parts of the world. This may encourage people to travel to those places, benefiting the economy there. As to the tips offered in the article, they seemed pretty basic to me. I was hoping for something more. Strong communication skills between the design team and the technical builders is universal across industries. However, I do get why keeping it simple and being specific are especially important for tours like this. You need to follow what the local companies are sourcing to build your set and make sure if substitutions of equipment happen. Not only does this affect aesthetics, it also affects the safety of the show. I see the author’s point. On top of this, I found it really interesting that the author brought up how the culture of certain places affect how they do things. In the section about being specific, the author brings up that “some countries have a strong culture of ‘saving face’”. They’ll agree to whatever is on the drafting and won’t inform the team that they substituted parts of the set up. It’s interesting to see how culture can play a part in the technical component of a tour.
Most of the incidents detailed in this article are on a different level than anything I encountered while touring abroad. That said, even in developed countries, you can still encounter unusual and unexpected problems. A good general rule of thumb is that if you have any gear that is mission-critical, you should bring it yourself. For our show, athletic-modern dance, we brought backup marley and a few push brooms in addition to our usual gear on a tour in Israel. If you have only toured in the U.S., you might be unpleasantly surprised when you discover that local crews in many countries do not sweep the stage--their housekeeping staff does (and not when you need them to). One thing that this article does not get into is the importance of show reports and keeping records. If you return to the same venue more than once, you will be glad to have a record of what happened while you were there the last time so you can prepare adequately while advancing the show.
Thought I’m not a sound person nor a part of a band, this article was really interesting for more general application! I would love to be an international supervisor on a show someday, so some of these communication/preparation tips will stick with me for the long run. I’m glad this article spent so much time emphasizing keeping requests simple, concise, and specific. I know I always get wordy in my requests (I write VERY wordy emails), but it was a good reminder to keep things short, especially in communication across languages, to make sure your point is as understood as it possibly can be. Carrying the vitals is a good point, because with something so important, you don’t want to risk missing it. You never know what can go wrong, so if you absolutely need something no matter what, it’s not worth taking the chance to not always have it around. The section on getting ahead is really interesting—sending small teams in advance to prep for the big work. This reminded me of something an actor said to me at the stage door of the Hamilton —they have 2 turntables, one that goes ahead to begin being installed because the process takes so long. GENIUS!
This is a pretty interesting idea. Touring ‘off route’ would be an exciting adventure, for sure. Like the article states, it is important to make sure you are communicating as effectively as possible with the venues you are planning on staying in. Where I used to live in Northern California, a school there would travel a full show all across Humboldt County. They would especially tour through the more rural parts of the county. Some of these places they thankfully had built a strong relationship with and they had a strong bond of communication flow between them on what was required that year. A professor from the same school also said she and a few other of her colleagues toured a clown show around rural parts of Mexico. One of the things that stuck out for me was that they had the idea of being able to pare down when needed so they could still put the best show on possible. If other larger scale tours decide to go off the beaten path, they may need to consider ways to make their show work if they are not provided exactly what they need.
While I love the idea of this article, the title was surely misleading. I am a very strong believer in the connecting power of theatre and the necessity of worldwide accessibility to all art forms, but this article doesn’t truly bring that idea into it. I think these practical issues are interesting, but do we need an entire article to focus simply on negotiations with venues? I am interested in how those venues differed from each other, and how the various cultures created various audiences. But granted, the information provided is certainly useful for anyone about to enter into that specific situation, I was just expecting a different article than I was confronted with. But even these tips are lacking. If I had entered this article being fully aware of what it was trying to convey I would be disappointed. Its tips are broad and vague and there are only 2: “Be Specific” and “Keep it Simple,” which are two ideas we work towards everyday in this field.
These are some odd yet helpful tips. It is usually important to be simple to avoid misunderstanding anyways but this is especially true when you are talking with people who aren’t as familiar with your world of practices, software, devices, etc. However, we can also avoid using simplicity because we want specifics and this can be done for those who either know what they are talking about or whom know where to find the appropriate information and have no concern that it is possible to obtain the necessary items. It makes sense that this isn’t the case when you are traveling to less-developed parts of the world. It also doesn’t surprise me that a typical response is four words long. Whenever an answer is not specific it is likely that you are being lied to or cheated. Specifically, “all fine” never seems appropriate. That would make me wonder regardless of who and where I was talking with because it guarantees absolutely nothing.
In agreement with what others have said above, I found this article a little misleading and disappointing. The title definitely made me think that I was about to read how awesome it is to tour in unusual locations and maybe even the writer's key experiences and how that has influenced their art. However, it was a strangely short cautionary tale about how it's difficult to get the same production quality when you choose to tour in less common performing venues. Don't get me wrong, I think the intention of the article is an interesting one. Although, I do have to say that every touring stage manager we've heard from throughout the years has said how these misunderstandings and miscommunications have taken place no matter where they are, and it just depends on the venue and their workers. I do think that the writer brings up an interesting point, even if just cursorily: these venues are part of an entirely different culture and system of beliefs, and it's interesting to see how those affect the production. I do think that if this article was meant to be a cautionary tale or at least a list of helpful tips for those touring off the beaten path, it would have been helpful to be more extensive than two items long.
It is really interesting to read about touring experiences that are dramatically different from what I think about in terms of tours. My best friend from high school is the head electrician on the first national tour of Bandstand right now, and how he talks about preparing for his tour is vastly different than how this article mentioned, but I also see a lot of similarities in the mindset you have to have when going into a new space. While he never mentioned any dead chickens, incense, or flowers in an unsafe theatre at any of the venues he has worked in, he did have to work alongside the production manager to determine if it made sense to continue working in a space that didn’t meet the technical specs that they needed. Each space you work in comes with it’s own set of challenges, some incredibly more difficult than the next, and it is important to try to mitigate those problems as early as possible through direct communication and, in this case, simplicity.
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