Road managers, also called tour managers, are responsible for everything
that happens on tour. They get everyone and everything from point A to B,
booking flights and hotels and arranging for the tour buses, trucks and limos.
They rent, fix and transport equipment and make sure it's set up and taken
down. They settle payment with the venue, ensuring the band is paid for the
concert and the crew is paid for their work. They make all catering and hospitality
arrangements. And sometimes, they get a chance to sleep.
"You're basically like a travel agent, a tour guide, a babysitter, a therapist,
all rolled into one," says Gordy Gale, a road manager in Los Angeles.
"Every single facet of putting on a concert is up to you. You deal with
everything from names missing from guest lists to promoters who decide they
don't want to pay you. You have to hire the crew, and you have to know every
job on the crew because if they get sick or can't handle it, you have to do
it.
"You have to be able to work in any country at any time," says Gale. "You
have to know how to get equipment in and out of foreign countries, get through
customs, deal with duties and taxes. You have to know the customs of the country,
be able to speak several languages, be able to drive in foreign countries,
know where to rent equipment, get a stage crew, get trucking permits, insurance.
It's pretty involved."
Road managers generally work for the artists, not their record companies.
They do a lot of the same work that band managers do year-round, but they
do it on the road. Band managers hire them on a contract basis for the duration
of a tour. Road managers answer to band managers, their main contacts on the
road.
"[The band manager] has to deal with the record company, the publicist,
attorneys, contracts and big deals," says Gale. "They'll hire a tour manager
to take the tours off their plate, because if they're gone, nobody's working
on getting the band future business. So you're almost identical to the manager
-- you're like his rep, but you tour."
"Depending on how much the management office is involved in the touring,
you could be doing everything or just a few things," says road manager Ben
Richardson. "It's a very nebulous job description. But more often it means
you'll just be sent a contract and you'll be responsible for putting the whole
thing together."
"You have to know a little bit about every aspect of the industry," says
Gary Scrutton, a touring guitar technician and former road manager. "You need
to know everything about union rates when you're hiring...and know how much
time they need to set up. You do everything from accounting to monitoring
weather conditions. There's just so much to know."
Touring means long days and a long time away from home. Traveling is a
way of life for road managers, who have carved out a living from organizing
the affairs of bands on the move.
Gale, who speaks "a little bit of" Japanese, Italian, Spanish and French,
has spent most of his career in the music industry on the road. He says tours
are demanding but always fun.
Gale says, "When you're on the road you miss home, and when you're home
you miss the road. I've worked on some very stressful tours but that's just
how it is....You work from the beginning of the tour to the end of the tour,
as well as taking care of business in the weeks leading up to the tour."
A road manager's work environment varies from the hotel room to the tour
bus to the production office. Surroundings are constantly changing, so road
managers have to be mobile and versatile.
"There is very little glamour in being a road manager or being on the road,"
says Julia Rose, a road manager in New York. "You spend a lot of hours tied
to your phone, constantly making and refining arrangements, then spend long
hours in a dirty club or in a production office with no windows, or hanging
outside a dressing room. There's loads of travel, but very little time to
see any sights."
"A typical day could start at 8 or 9 in the morning and not finish till
1 or 2 at night, so the hours are really long," says Scrutton. "It takes at
least 12 to 14 hours just to set up and take down a two-hour show. And you
spend all of it walking or standing, so you get lots of exercise."
The basic physical requirements of being a road manager include being able
to lug some equipment and control crowds. Someone with physical disabilities
probably wouldn't be able to do most of what this job requires.
"You could possibly get away with having a bad back, but that's about it,"
says Gale. "Most of it involves jumping in to help lug the gear, hook up electricity,
troubleshoot generators and do crowd control."
"I'd say the biggest requirements are stamina, a strong immune system,
the ability to digest bad food and the ability to function on very little
sleep," says Rose. "Sometimes I help push cases of equipment, and there's
lots of running around in larger venues."