Hold the presses! Big news! Flash! Taylor Swift gives her truck drivers $100,000 bonuses! As a single bonus, this sum is quite substantial, but when one has 50 truck drivers in their employ and each receives a bonus of this size, it is a “life-changing” amount according to Michael Scherkenbach, founder and CEO of Denver-based trucking company, Shomotion LLC which, together with Upstaging Inc., provided trucking services for the artist’s tour. On top of all that, Swift gave bonuses to her crew including riggers, audio techs, lighting techs and dancers totaling $55 million dollars. It’s an unprecedented sum of money, despite it being a mere fraction of the singer’s worth. Granted, this is not the flash news report it was a month ago, but I am still blown away by the generosity and respect she has shown to her staff.
Labor Pains
I am aware that this is a magazine devoted to presenting the latest and greatest in new gear and I, like most gear-loving techs, am as guilty as the next person when it comes to ogling a new piece of technology as if it were the latest pin up of a scantily clad movie star. Unfortunately, as sexy as the new (and vintage) gear might be, it doesn’t set itself up or transport itself around the country. Maybe it will in the near future when AI takes over, but until then, everyone needs to rely on human labor to get the job done. As anyone who is in charge of hiring knows, good help is hard to find. And in a gig business such as ours, one can be working one day and find themselves unemployed the next. It’s the nature of the work we do, and it requires a lot of dedication and sacrifice and the compensation is crucial. Most jobs require an eight-hour day, but it’s a rare day indeed when we get away with even a 10-hour day.
One of the aspects of my job is to hire labor for each job we do, and that means the right tech for the right job. RF techs, FOH, monitor, playback, lighting, video, backline, teleprompter, electricians and staging to name a few. That’s a fair number of moving parts and as we all know, the more moving parts, the more there’s a chance of one of those parts failing. When one of the parts fails, it holds up the rest of the production and then we all fail. If we all fail, then the responsible one becomes the production manager who hired improperly. If one brings in a company to do a few different jobs such as, lighting, video and staging, then the company can be faulted for anything that goes wrong, but ultimately the blame is to be placed on the production coordinator.
When speaking of failures, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a stage collapse, pyro gone wrong or any other major catastrophe, but rather the small things such as not being on time for load-in or holding up production by not bringing the right gear. These aren’t technical problems; these are labor problems. If someone moves too slowly or doesn’t know how to troubleshoot their equipment, thereby putting the brakes on the production, that’s a labor problem. Most of all, not putting the correct amount of hands on a job will usually come back to bite one in the rear-end.
Scaling Up
Way back in the last century, I worked in a good many of the New York City clubs that relied on one tech to do everything from setting up gear and patching the stage to mixing both FOH and monitors. Of course, these were small clubs but, they had major acts who were demanding on a major scale. When some of the owners decided to either expand their clubs or open bigger venues, it was clear that they needed a crew to get the job done. As business owners, they were thinking, “if I expand, I’ll make more money.” Unfortunately, they were also thinking that to optimize profits they could keep the same operating method with only one tech doing it all. Granted, audio technicians are considered to be godlike, but really, we are only emanations of the one true creator so, in my less-than-god state, I refused the offers I received to fly solo.
I also butted heads with club owners regarding paying a fair wage for a 12-to-14 hour day. I get it! It’s expensive to run a venue or a tour and compromises are required, but when figuring in budget cuts, one should not cheap out on labor, as a solid crew makes everyone’s job easier. Good labor is hard to find, and when the right team is assembled, one should do their best to show appreciation and ensure that they stay around. Remember, when choosing between “fast, good and cheap” you can only have two, but not all three. I appreciate the difficulty in making money as a promoter or producer, but believe me, labor is not something one should skimp on.
I recently helped a colleague put together a rehearsal for a K-pop band, which started out as a small setup, but grew to be a bit larger. I suggested an extra tech for the load-in and load-out, but then the event grew into a production with a full input list and each bandmember on in-ears. I mentioned to my colleague that the A2 should now be on full call and a couple more A2s should be hired for the set and strike. My advice went unheeded due to supposed budget constraints. However, I can’t imagine K-pop having money problems, but what do I know? I do know that the techs worked well and were ready to go until the band walked in and required changes, at which point the two of them could not work fast enough. The client was unhappy and complained. My associate had to eat crow and admit it was his fault for not hiring enough techs for the job. I’m pretty sure that another few hundred dollars would not have broken the client’s bank. And I’m also sure that the client would have been satisfied if they could have gotten their event done in a timely fashion. They might even have tipped the tech.
A Higher Standard
It’s become clear to me that most clients take it for granted when an event or show goes according to plan, yet the second it goes south — for any reason — the accusations fly and everybody is at fault. I am aware that my shows do not compare to a Taylor Swift Eras tour, but the concept is the same. To save money, just imagine if the tour only hired 47 trucks instead of 50 or — instead of a 250-person local crew — they only hired 200 hands. Chaos would than ensue. Of course, the Eras tour is making huge sums of money and doesn’t need to save on the labor. Regardless, Taylor Swift has recognized, in a very generous and unprecedented way, how important all the live moving pieces are in making a tour such a success. She has made everyone working on the tour feel appreciated and has also raised the bar for anyone who relies on a crew to make their event or concert a success. For that I applaud her.
