Think of all the stereotypes you hear when a band goes on tour. Yea, I witnessed just about all of it last week. If you want details let me know. Anyway, as I get more settled into my job I love it more and more each day. I love being able to combine the things I love most which are planning events and music! One of the main things my company does is organize concerts. I was fortunate enough to go on my very first tour with triple platinum Australian musicians. It was a 6 day tour over Queensland that started in Cairns (near the Great Barrier Reef) then proceeded down the coast to Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Fraser Coast. The 17 piece band and I flew up to Cairns and then we drove the rest of the tour all the way down to Brisbane (22 hours of driving total). I had an absolute blast with the band and my other two co-workers on the tour. It was a very exhausting trip especially for one of my co-workers who was the tour manager, musician AND driver. So I tried to help out as much as I could. Here is a sample of my day:
6 AM - wake up, divvy up the merchandise money between the 3 artists from the night before, breakfast
8 AM - drive to next city
12 - 3 - arrive at hotel/arrange for the 15 rooms make sure everyone has keys/take away lunch
3 - 6 - set up dressing rooms, help with sound check, divvy per diems, get water/coke and tea for everyone, work with Front of House staff to distribute flyers, posters for next show, get a float from the box office for merchandise, count/set up merchandise
6 - 6:45 - go back to hotel shower if there is time and attempt to scrounge for any kind of food (these towns are so small and felt like 1950s America with the tiny shops and nothing open at night!)
6:45 - 7:00 -Go back to venue and hang out in green room with the musicians (my fav because a few warm up their harmonies while every is sipping their wine/champagne/scotch/whatever... but for me its always water since I'm dealing with money)
7:00 - 7:30 - Pre-show merchandise selling
7:30 - 9:00 - Watch show (Best part!)
9 - 9:20 - Merchandise intermission selling
9:20 - 9:40 - Count merch and money hoping it adds up, set up table for the meet and greet/autograph session for after the show
9:40 - 10:30 Watch the rest of the show
10:30 - 12:00 Sell merchandise, count the merchandise and money, give 10% to venue and pray that it adds up
12 - 12:15 Take all merchandise to the vans and depart for hotel
12 - 2:00 AM - Attempt to fall asleep after the nerve wrecking merchandise sales!
The weird thing is that I always thought I wanted to be behind the scenes running around and working with the venue, etc. But, when I would get back to my hotel room I really wished that I was performing. It would definitely be a lot less stressful! Who knows, maybe one day I will get the opportunity to do it!
Overall, I had a really great experience and I got to see a lot of the state of Queensland. The drives were gorgeous (most of them) as northern Queensland is tropical. I saw TONS of banana trees and sugar cane plantations and lots of mountains and beautiful green hilly land that was beautiful. I really enjoyed the drives because it was a time for me to talk with the musicians as I couldn’t hang out with them any other time. They are all very nice and they inspired me to start piano teaching! I hope to have a few students soon. Also, I wasn’t the only American on the trip! The trumpet player is from Las Vegas and is just a year older than me. In Vegas he played in the show Jersey Boys and then he got an opportunity to tour in China which he did for a few months and met his now girlfriend who is Australian. So, he ended up here with her and he just fell into the right group of musicians who are friends with my company so he was hired for the gig. He’s really cool and I’m excited to have an American friend here.
It looks like we will be doing this same tour two or three more times in 2010. We also have another show we are putting on the road that will be touring 2 – 3 times in 2010 as well. So between the two shows I will be going to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmania and Perth. I’m also very involved with a 6 day event we are producing in Malaysia in June. I am so pumped for it!
I’m collecting post cards of all the locations I visit so hopefully you will get one soon!!
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