Nate Dawson [from his Facebook page]
From Nate Dawson on Fb.: A PSA from your friendly neighborhood stage tech: Imagine you’re at work. Say you came in early and you’ve been at the office or job site for 10-12 hours already. It’s been a long day filled with challenges. It’s 5 o’clock and most people are done for the day, but you’ve got a big project to finish, and will still be at your office for another 2 or three hours. You’re tired because you’ve had equally long days every day this week, and only slept a few hours last night, but you’re focused because you really want to get the job done and go home.
Suddenly, your workplace is stormed by hordes of drunken strangers yelling “HEY! CAN I HAVE YOUR STAPLER?!!” “GIVE ME SOME FOLDERS!!” or “HEY HARDHAT – ARE THERE ANY HAMMERS UP THERE I CAN HAVE?!” “GIMME THOSE BLUEPRINTS YOU’RE USING!!” If you don’t immediately stop what you’re working on and give the strangers your work tools, they beg and plead and yell some more. Finally some get angry and start berating you.
Sound like a good time?
By the end of a concert, a stage crew has typically been at a venue for 10-12 hours. We do that for days at a time, often with very little sleep in between. We work hard all day to unload trucks, set up gear, work out the logistics of a new workspace every day, deal with different people and different local crews at every venue, and we’re far from home. This is our job. You get a show, but we’re working. (Mind you I’m NOT complaining. We all chose this insanity, and for the most part we enjoy what we do, but it’s still hard work).
Immediately after the show is over, we are beginning the final process of packing up the gear and loading it back on the trucks (we’ll be there another 2-3 hours after you’ve gone home and climbed into your comfy bed). That’s precisely when we get inundated by, often-times inebriated and obnoxious strangers, demanding that we give them band property, and the tools of our trade.
If you’re polite and there’s an extra drum stick, pick or set list handy, we’re usually happy to toss it to you. But you are not entitled to a souvenir. That is not stated on your ticket anywhere. You can look.
If there aren’t any used pieces of gear around, believe us when we say so. And don’t expect us to stop our job and go looking for these things for you. We want to finish our work day and go home just like you do at the end of your day (and when I say “home” I mean a bus that takes us to our next days work).
Beyond that, believe it or not, some players are particular about certain tools that they like. Drummers don’t always break sticks, or leave them scattered around the stage. They may want to reuse the same sticks a few times, same with guitarists and their picks. Our first priority as crew is to make sure that the artists we work for have the tools they need and want to perform at their best and bring you a good show, not to make sure that you can go home with those tools. Even set lists are often reused, and artists make notes on them that they’ll need again tomorrow night in the next city. We’re not just being jerks, sometimes we literally can’t give you what you want, even if we wanted to.
Now again, I’m not complaining. For the most part I love my job. Most of us do, or we wouldn’t do it. And we all appreciate the fans. But please, be polite to the crew after the show. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and be understanding (or at the very least not rude, obnoxious or condescending) if they don’t stop working immediately to attend to your demands for their property and work tools.
Thank you.
Rant off.
Love, your friend and mine,
Me
(a/k/a Nate Dawson)