The Absurd Logistics of Concert Tours 

I'm starting to think I am just not aware of the majority of jobs out there. This entire world is built upon labor I wasn't even aware needed doing.

As someone who works as a head charter scheduler for a bus company one cool/interesting thing you forgot to mention is that on many trips, we often send a second driver ahead in a regular vehicle days prior to a trip. They can then spend the night at a roadside hotel and complete a mid-drive swap with the previous bus driver to bypass the 10 hour limit for longer trips.

My personal favorite example of logistics is the infamous Van Halen "no brown M&Ms". Van Halen's shows were very special effect heavy, with lots of expensive equitment, so a lot could go wrong if the venue didn't set things up properly. so the band put a clause in the middle of their technical specifications that there wouldn't be any brown M&Ms. if they saw brown M&Ms, they knew the venue didn't fully read the contract and they should double check everything to make sure that things were safe

As someone working on stage automation (moving elements in shows such as Ed Sheeran or Coldplay’s current tours), an interesting thing you didn’t mention in this video is that big shows will often have large parts of the stage built twice (A set and B set). Set A will be built in venue 1, while Set B is already being built in venue 2. When the show is done in venue 1, Set A will move on to venue 3 while the tour moves to venue 2 and so on.

I've been a tour manager for 15 years and the importance of good pre-preduction can not be overstated. I did one tour with 28 shows in Europe where the whole pre-preduction was horrible and crew was averaging 4 or 5 hours sleep per night. Our last show was in Madrid. After rigging and showcheck was over the whole crew went to this posh white table cloth restaurant to celebrate the end of the tour. It's worth mentioning that our crew came exclusively from the punk/metal scene and where totally misplaced in the restaurant. During dinner our drum tech said "I just feel.. so tired" and started crying. And one by one we just kinda joined him. So there we sat, 11 guys crying out of fatigue together.

I have never seen a comments section so full of experts and industry people, but as a normal person this is really cool

As a mere fan of live music, let me just say to everyone who makes live shows happen, THANKS for all you do! We appreciate it!

There are more careers out there than just being a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. It blows my mind that our education was so narrow scoped that we never even knew.

i would watch this man explain the logistics of anything at this point

I work as a head of sound for an international arena tour playing 5000-14,000 cap venues. I just spent 12 full days at home. It was my first time home in 7 months and I won’t get home again for another 8 months. Touring is a wild time!

I remember working as a runner having to go get Fiji water for Michael Bolton when I had just turned 16 and got my license. This was before Fiji water was in every store. Took me almost 2 hours and roughly 8-10 stores before I finally found cases of it. Brought it to his room waiting to get the diva treatment since it wasn’t there immediately and he was super cool about the delay. As I walked in the very first thing he said was “Thank you so much!” As I set the case down and started throwing them into the fridge he said something to the effect of “They’re worth the wait.” and tossed me a bottle told me to sit down and cool off, this was Florida in July. He was super humble and a very cool guy. He couldn’t believe how long I ran and how many stores I had to go to for the waters and said they were normally easy to find in most cities but it was a nightmare on the ridder in some regions. He was asking me about my “job” and then was amazed when I told him I was actually just the son of one of the supporting act’s musicians and was just trying to help out the production crew. He was joking around about how he was going to steal me from their band. Super cool guy.

Someone needs to make a documentary showing the lives of the people involved in this. Not the band or the talent. Just the people behind the scenes. I would love to see that.

As a tour manager and production manager, living this very life, you’ve hit on a lot of really good details, probably the best breakdown I’ve seen, but even this video still can’t prepare you for the reality that is our world.

I work as local crew at a (somewhat smaller) venue and honestly, I cannot stress enough how incredible riggers are. We often put on variety acts like trapeze artists as well, and these guys and girls math like it's noone's business then climb to the fucking ceiling of a stadium and just get shit done. All while knowing full well that if they mess up, people could actually die. Riggers are - in my personal opinion - the unsung heros of the live entertainment industry!

I’m a production manager in Australia, and I’m a amazed by how accurate this is, coming from a non “industry” person, even down to the specific weird terminology. This must’ve taken some solid research

I worked stage security, and we indeed got a detailed brief. We were told expected guest amount, bands type of music and how their fans typically act. We were told 5000 people would show, we got 10,000, we got told there won't be crowd surfing, we had 9 crowd surfers over the evening (first went up in the first song lol)

Touring Video Tech here, this has to be the most accurate video describing the logistics of our industry without sensationalizing anything. However as you’d expect from a 15 minute video this only begins to scratch the surface of the absurdity and insanity that goes on to produce these shows at a high level. Thank you for this video and shedding light on what we do!

As a documentary filmmaker, I thank you for starting the narrative exactly where it should, which is at the end of a previous show to show everything that happens overnight at the new locations. It really gives a sense of how non stop these are

beyoncé and her tour team (tait towers, livenation, etc) did an INCREDIBLE job during the formation tour. truly a feat of engineering. taylor swift’s reputation tour is another that springs to mind. designing, building, then deconstructing and transporting these megastructures is an incredible achievement.

As a former stagehand and tour manager, thanks for covering this. We work super hard. I am on the label side now... and to be honest I (mostly) don't miss it! hahah

OH MY GOSH YES THANK YOU I work for a local lighting company and we build lightshows for bands. The teardown and setup process is such an underappreciated art. Thank you for enlightening the masses of the absolute insanity that is my job lmao

I've been a tour manager for 3 years and a stage manager and production manager for 10. It became such a routine that I forget that I'm part of such an insane world. Thank you for making this! It's very thorough and accurate.

Tour bus driver here and this video is amazing. The pace can be absolutely break neck depending on the band you're carrying, and even very small bands playing club shows use buses (with band, merch, and crew all sharing the same bus), and that's when everything goes right. I've had tire blowouts on the bus and trailer, belts shred, an alternator literally break apart, border delays, detoured around or cut right thru snowstorms and wildfires, and changed more roof air motors than I can count. Depending on the type of company you drive for, you might be able to get it serviced or you might have to do the repair yourself. Either way, all of that eats into the downtime to sleep and be well rested to drive the next night (sleeping all day and driving all night is entirely counter to our bodies natural rhythm), and a lot of times issues stack up and you're barely getting by for days or weeks. I've even seen a band member sustain serious head trauma on a travel day at the very start of the tour so we sat with the bus parked outside the hospital all night until he was released and then hauled ass to the show. The fact that things go as smooth as they do given all the moving parts, even with the best planning, is nothing short of a miracle.

I went to an Elton John concert some years ago. I sat for 10 to 15 minutes after the concert rather than be in the crowd getting out of the venue. As soon as Elton and the band left the stage, a team of the production and stage crew started pulling everything down. It was incredible to watch.

Thank you for highlighting how crazy my industry is. I left the stage crews cause the travel and now only do studios or location rigging. It's a crazy life style and very hard to have solid interpersonal connections. From Service to Stage is literally the same life style lol

I work as an audio engineer for much much smaller shows than the ones like in the video, but I've worked as a stagehand for bigger acts like the country artist Kevin Fowler and the prog rock group Trans Siberian Orchestra. The TSO show was 8 hours of incredibly grueling unloading, rigging lighting up, then putting it all back. I worked so hard I could barely stand after load out as my legs were pool noodle. To top it off, I had to drive 2 hours to get home. I was then paid 80$ for the entire thing, and swore off working as a stage hand forever. However I wouldn't go back and not participate, it was enlightening to learn how the big acts put their shows on, as my experience is mostly with smaller/medium sized bands playing in bars or small theaters.

Im an A1/A2 at a road house that brings in some pretty major artists and I would have to say that you did a pretty damn good job of explaining the challenges that are faced by live performance industry. If I had one thing to add it would be that production is a thankless job. If everything goes perfectly no one notices all the people supporting the show and making it happen. If one little thing goes wrong, all eyes look to the people supporting the artist and fault them for it. Next time you go to a concert find one crew member and say thank you. it really makes a difference.

I would love to see a video on the pre-production of a tour. The show's design, hiring the crew, planning the schedule. That kind of thing.

Local stage rigger here, thanks for this! We work a very thankless job and this video really puts it into perspective. Most weekend long festivals you attend encompass between 10-19 days of hard work for us stage crew.

I was a room service manager at 5 star hotels. Riders were the bane of my existence. But it was always fun and exciting. One band thought I was the chef and we all just went with it 😝

Next time I buy concert tickets I definitely will do so with thinking how much work goes into making sure the show goes smoothly

As a non stop touring musician, I applaud each and everyone doing the actual labour behind the tours.

I've been a rigger for 25 years, and I'm surprised how thorough and correct this presentation is. Nicely done, and thank you.

I'd be really interested to see how the logistics of festivals differs from the logistics of tours. I was just at a festival the other day and while many acts used the provided stage and lighting setups, some of the headliners rigged up new things. There were only two stages, so turnaround had to be completed in about an hour.

It’s really a satisfying feeling to attend a concert live, it’s too bad I can’t afford the expenses most times

As someone who has toured for 10+ years…. I’m impressed with how accurate this is. Well done. Missing a few things but with the amount you got right that would be so difficult for people to actually know. But not enough for it to matter. Fantastic.

This is pretty accurate. My father is a truck driver and has done everything from Broadway tours to car shows to concerts both big and small. Sometimes when the show was nearby my mother and I would take him for dinner and bring him back afterwards. I have been backstage before but it was usually for bands/singers I didn’t care for like Alabama and George Strait but when it was one’s I would’ve loved to go to, like Katy Perry, he didn’t have backstage access since it was very strict on how many were given out. One method not mentioned is sometimes a singer might request two sets of equipment. These would be Tour Group A and Tour Group B. A would get the first arena set up while B goes ahead to get the next venue set up. When the first show is done A will be sent onto the third stop to get everything rigged up there while the singer and band and others are sent onto the second stop. It’s very efficient since it gives more time for setup and takes into account any possible delays and also adds more dates and venues to the concert. A very famous example was for Taylor Swift who prefers this method.

I was lucky enough to be a very busy local crew hand for a year, and you can really start to tell the insane depth of planning that goes into some tours. When Chainsmokers came through town, I was absolutely blown away when I realized that while I was still packing up the drumkit, lighting was already starting to land their trusses a few feet on either side of the catwalk. They’d mapped out everything so perfectly that we had that immense setup completely packed up & out the door in two hours.

As a production manager for big arena bands in the 80s and 90s (Alice Cooper, Blondie, INXS etc. Home for 17 days in a two year run.) I really enjoyed this video. Perfectly presented. No BS. All true. Thanks for the (very tired) memories. Well done.

I’m a venue ops guy, usually the first person to meet the production, tour and stage managers as they arrive on site. I’m often turning the venue around multiple times in a week for completely different shows and I’m so grateful for a video that makes sense of the lifestyle.

In Denmark we have Grøn Koncert (Green concerts. Now just known as "Grøn" ). Where the entire concert area is moved over night. This means gear, stages, stalls and eveything else, is moved to a new location, and set up between 9:30pm one day, and 01:00pm the next. This is done by ~700 volenteers, All spending some summer vacation to attend. Concerts are held in 2 blocks of 4 days, with 3 days rest between. After attending as a volenteer for 8 years, I am still blown away by the fact, that it is possible.

I used to work as local crew at an arena of the size in this video. One additional bit of complexity is that there was often a basketball or hockey game in that arena the night before. That basketball court needs to be packed up and stored, or the hockey rink covered in insulation, boards, and carpets, by an overnight crew so that it's ready for the road crew when they get there. At our arena we'd typically build the stage ourselves (to the specifications of the band) with the same overnight crew.

A deep dive into tour scheduling would be amazing. I've always wanted to know how some many bands go on tour and determine their path and what venues they play given that similar bands are also trying to do the same.

I was an administrator and chef at a stadium that operated as these circuses came to town. I did backstage catering which included the food order for stagehands, support staff, and bands. Mastering logistics is our common thread connection. Respect. Excellent video.

I bet that absolutely nothing compares to the thrill and exhilaration of being in charge of all that logistics. I'm sure its tiring as hell and incredibly stressful, but the satisfaction of tens of thousands of screaming fans, and the knowledge that your work put them there is well worth the effort.

Band/talent riders are crazy! I worked as a local rigger/stage tech for 2 roadhouses in college. I got to read the riders to prepare for the tours' rigging/audio needs, and some of them had wild demands for the talent! Some of my favorites were: •a modestly stocked bar offstage to be manned by one of the tour crew during the show •a driver on standby (ended up being me) to take the lighting supervisor to get cigars if he ran out (he did) •the crew were not allowed to be seen eating on or near the stage as it disgusted the talent

I’ve been local crew for a bunch of tours that have come through town and I’m in awe of the organization and management skills of the touring team. They pre-pack the truck the day before the tour and some guys have tape layouts on the walls for where the straps and load bars go and the divisions between the PA, the instruments, rigging etc, and some of them just cold memorize the exact Tetris order of the truck day one and they use a radio to communicate which cases they need loaded next. It’s like clockwork.

I used to work as a runner for a local arena when concerts/events would come through. It was a very long day for garbage pay, but it was so much fun seeing how the crews set up this massive production and tear down so quickly. For those wondering, I was basically an errand boy...taking artists to the gym, buying extra guitar picks at the local music shop, getting wrestling props, basically anything production wants or doesn't have.

This video is one I've been trying to find for ages! I'm so glad someone's gone into the specific details of how touring actually works!

As a local rigger, thank you so much for this video. I’ve been dying for the day you’d upload this because I’ve always been so interested in the logistics. As a watcher for 5 years this is a perfect video 🙏

I was a VIP member and instead of meeting the artist I wanted to meet the tour manager and the production manager because it's just amazing of what they do. In my line of work, I always thought that doctors run the hospital, but there is an entire administrative side to it that no one ever thinks about. And I think the similarity between the relationship of physicians versus administrator is exactly like the artist's versus the production team. It's amazing and I give it to everybody who is a part of that process

This was a lot of fun to watch!

Good god. This is an anxiety-inducing nightmare. It's such an amazing achievement. I never gave it much thought before, I have to admit.

I got to roadie for Green Day for a day, I worked as the drum techs assistant, put the cymbals on their stands, and even got to soundcheck their drums. It was definitely very interesting to learn all the things that went into putting on a show of this scale

As a retired lighting designer who toured some, just want to commend you for a great overview for the masses. Good pre-production and logistics cannot be overstated. Second to that is the riggers. A good head rigger is a godsend.

As a former arena social media manager AND the child and sibling of theatre tech director/roadies, this was such a cool video! One of my fave memories from the arena job is being allowed to tour the backstage setup for a Cirque du Soleil show - the arena was basically transformed into a Vegas-style theatre for a few days! When I worked at the arena, I was also fascinated by how sporting events were set up too. There’s soooo much work that goes into game day that people don’t realize (e.g. setting up ice for hockey is a lengthy and meticulous process)

This was a lot of fun to watch! I was a tour manager for many years and I think you did a great job summarizing the organized chaos of national touring.

It's amazing to think about when a singer can't, or chooses not to preform. He isn't just effecting themselves, but will effect the fans, venue, and their own load out staff.

I work as operations at Jiffy Lube Live, a 25,000 cap music venue in Bristow VA. I help get the venue ready for the show. While I don't work for the tour, getting the venue ready is basically this video. A lot of work needs to be done in terms of set up, front gate security, stocking up for bathrooms, etc. Watching this really makes me learn how one show at my job takes so much time and effort just to make things happen. I appreciate watching this video.

Watching this makes me appreciate the days I toured in a van with a trailer. It's rough, but less room for error -- and tons of good stories to go with it.

One thing to keep in mind for some artists especially driving that stretch from Salt Lake to Denver is they might stop and perform at a local college/university if there is a day or two in between major performances. This will let the artists stay sharp and provide lodging and food for their people. Happens all the time at UW, but for smaller/upcoming artists.

Holy shit those logistics are INSANE...I never realized how much goes on behind the scenes for major concert tours..THANK YOU TO everyone who work tirelessly from the first phone call (hey..we're going to go on tour)...to the last phone call (hey we just finished our tour) 🥰

You finally touched an industry I work around & you did a great job explaining more or less of how this works. Great work. Been a fan of your channel for years.

I’ve worked as local crew for several shows and I have to say it’s so impressive how choreographed the set up/tear down happens. With so much chaos in every direction I’ve only seen one incident happen after about 50 events. A light was damaged at the Carrie Underwood show. That light was worth $20k so it’s extremely important that meticulous detail happens

Wow! I have to say, I'm impressed with this breakdown of touring shows. I'm a local union stagehand (IATSE) and I can say this is one of, if not the best breakdown of how life in the entertainment industry works for the men and women who tour, or who are just there for the day to make sure the show can go off without a hitch, and make sure thousands of fans have a great experience. The one thing I will say is that while rigging is one of the most important departments (you did spend quite a bit of time talking about them), every department is equally important. From management who's directing the organization chaos, the local stagehands who do the grunt work, to catering, to the guy who has to clean up the confetti off the floor at the end of the night after all the crew have left. Oh, and nice detail with the burlap being used to protect the beams. When I heard you say that, I knew you did your homework😉 Oh x2, the explanation of what rigging symbol mean what is probably the clearest and easiest to understand I have ever heard. Will definitely be using that as a training aid!

I spent the first couple of years of my career touring during the summers when I wasn't in school, and I'm so glad I switched to technical directing. my half brother in law is the monitor engineer for The Interrupters and he's gone about 11 months of the year. it's absolutely nuts

Touring is one of the most exhausting things I've done. I was a videographer for an artist and my god the 5 hour sleep gets to you after sometime

Great video, but one thing that BIG bands have to their advantage is that the majority of the hired support is exclusive to themselves and not only stays with them the entire tour, but from tour to tour every year. Bus drivers (and the buses themselves), riggers, catering, etc etc. Its only a few less things to worry about needing to contract with/schedule, but makes a world of difference when there are, as your description very well shows, millions of moving parts!

Sam (and team), you should do ‘event ticketing’ next! It’s such a crazy one here in the US!

I start my next tour next week. Since roadies never have consistent schedules and rare weekends off, when we have gaps in the schedule, we call that Roadie Friday Night. Suffice to say things can get WILD! We in the stagehand community embody the “work hard/play hard” mentality.

Thanks for not leaving the Production Coordinator (my gig) out! I can't believe how many little details you nailed in this!

I worked as a chef at the hockey arena in Tampa, FL and was blown away by the speed of turnover from a concert to hockey to professional wrestling to arena football to circus. The coordination is unbelievable to watch. I kept the backstage riders for both Iron Maiden and Public Enemy.

I work as a crew member for events like these in the UK, its so cool to see the whole thing summed up in a video like this! :D Great job and I am so proud to work in such a cool industry! :)

Can't wait for this channel's episode on logistics of televising the FIFA World Cup live. Another great video right here!

As someone who is in a small local band, it is crazy to see what goes into making big shows and tours happen. I thought it was hard doing a tech day and setting up with some friends. I can only imagine how crazy it is with a team that big.

I’ve been a artist and tour manager for 2 decades. Pre-planning, good communication and having an „happy“ team is most essential. This all accurate, well researched. ✌🏻

I once did stage managing at a small festival (6-7k people) and overheard a lot of the stuff about the stage rigging, and that was on a fully constructed stage. The stage and the equipment on it were from different companies, so they still had to do some work. The main concern was that if it got too windy they'd have to partially deconstruct it else the wind would take it away.

I don't know where you got all your information but clearly it came from a rigger and what an excellent job you did covering the technical side of touring. Thank you

I did a double take at 1:47 because the bands I'm interested in usually don't separate between “artists” and “band”, and there generally also aren't any additional dancers or performers, there's just “the band”.

Here in my country (Singapore) we have concerts by both English language singers (who're usually Westerners) & Chinese language ones (who're usually Asians) & my family had the impression that the former emphasized more on work-life balance, as they were observed to less readily entertain encore requests & also seemed to be more likely to have their concert dates on weekday nights instead of weekends. However upon closer look, the issue about the concert dates seem to be more likely caused by chance, as each performer typically visits multiple cities per week, so a minority of them will have weekend concert dates while the majority will have weekday ones. Also remembered that my country got lucky in 2014 when Taylor Swift's Red concert added another concert date here so as to replace her Bangkok concert date that was cancelled last-minute due to Thailand's coup then

Been working in logistics for over 15 years now. Thanks for showing all the insane details that goes into moving stuff and getting it right so it looks good when under a time crunch.

As a former production manager, you described what I do so well!! I never even thought of rigging as a way of standardizing the rest of the show. Would also like to mention leapfrogging, where you have 2 identical sets of equipment (some crew too), which leapfrog each other , i.e when one is loading out, the other is loading in at a different venue...Cirque du soleil du this a lot I think.

I have just been to the Coldplay concert in Copenhagen and it surprised me so much how fast they were to pack down the giant stage the last fireworks had just gone off and the credits were done and then over 200 people flooded the scene and began to pack it down. My dad is a drummer so I know these things quite well and how these massive venues work but it still surprised me so much to see the stage going from festive with lights music and fireworks to being torn apart in a matter of minutes.

I work in the music and events industry as a production manager, LD (lighting designer/operator) and audio engineer. Great video! Just thought I'd mention that lighting isn't usually as simple as just turning on a preprogrammed "configuration".

This is so relevant considering what just took place with that Asian boy band, where a giant video screen literally fell on top of one of the singers, basically crushing his bones(he seems to have survived). The rigging is what everyone takes for granted. Great video & great comments from the pros

I have a degree in theatre production. I worked thru college as a local stage hand in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I have done many of these shows. It is a massive effort to get everything off the truck in the right order and back on the truck. Two stories that blow my mind was the alcohol road box I unloaded one time. It was the size of a costuming road box. Another time I did a show in the late 90’s where they had a dual Macintosh setup on KVM. They were running both machines simultaneously. The computers had the music for a famous performers band. He gave me headphones and switched back and forth between the two computers and the music was exactly in sync. I asked him what anybody would ask. Was the vocal track on the computer for the performer? He told me “no comment.”

This video is being shared all around the live events technicians FB groups as it's pretty on point and explains the process simply! Good vid on educating the public!

As a child of the 80's, my life has been shaped by great music. I watched the Journey 'Frontiers and Beyond' concert VHS so many times. There's a huge amount of stage setup and roadies and logistics in their. It was great seeing a modern version of it. One thing, timing belts are inside of engines and not something a driver can see/inspect. Fan belts, A/C belts, alternator belts on the other hand are the ones we can usually see and inspect when we lift our hoods. Most of all though, thank you for this great video!

Just waiting for the Sam from Wendover tour where he just explains the “incredible logistics of [blank]” for hours

Backline Tech here. Greatest feeling is seeing the artist smile back at you on how the set up is. Had Isaac of Kublai Khan, Justin Brown when he played with Thundercat, Matthew Nathanson, and more give me compliments on how the kit sounded, looked and felt. Lots of hours and blood goes into these show at ALL levels. Smaller tours are almost double the hectic ness and half the pay.

I’ve been in the entertainment industry for almost a decade, in various capacities, currently working for a regional theatre getting many touring groups coming through. As usual, this video does a spectacular job outlining the complexity behind live performance that the vast majority of people never see. And by not ever seeing what happens backstage, you know that we’ve all done our jobs right. It’s a gruelling industry, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

From music festivals to giant arena tours riggers riggers work is incredible. The stuff they build borders on magic.

I do national touring (Australia) as a lighting systems tech aswell as a local rigger in my home venue. This was great dude, thoroughly enjoyed this and am impressed with the level of research you've done, especially your bridle top rigging points and motor symbols

Up until my retirement, I was an IA "local" for 40 years; from spot op, to deck hand to IA local steward on artists like the Eagles, Paul McCartney and Elton John. This video should be a mandatory first stop for ANYONE wanting to know how the tour business works. As we say so often, "Show business ain't want it looks like from the outside." My favorite newbie assumption was a green stagehand, thinking he/she was gonna "see" the show by running a front light. Kudos for an excellent expose. You've told it like it really is. I will also add to ANY local prospect who wants to work in this business: Never...repeat never... either no-show a call or be late to a call. Anyone who practices this stupidity is considered the scourge of the industry.

SO interesting! We usually think only of band members getting from one show to the next - but it's everyone doing everything else who are really under stress every day! There is so much to consider and so many people needed! It's a far cry from being in a garage band, getting their own gigs and having friends helping to set up and tear down and load up a single van! 😳

Like many others in the comments, you’ve done a great job of explaining just what happens and how much goes into making them happen. It’s my living, and it’s gruelling but I get a lot of satisfaction from it. Thanks.

As a pro live sound engineer, I appreciate the detail of the stage plot/input list you put together. Very realistic!

I've had many friends in the industry, both as musicians in major touring bands as well as local and touring crew. It's astounding to me what everyone goes through just to get a show up and running every single night.

Some things that some large shows do is to build a Supergrid that attaches to the venue's beams. This creates a standard set of rigging points for every show that can then make the show rigging much faster. Also, often times the lighting comes prerigged on special truss. The fixtures are already hung and wired on the truss. This allows the production to simply roll the section of truss in. connect it to the other truss and make a few cable connections and its ready to go. Makes putting in complex lighting significatly easier.

This was one of the most gripping episodes you've made so far! Incredibly interesting to see how these pieces come together, even from someone who has never attended any event like the ones shown here.