A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit our son Patrick at the Sprint Center in Kansas City where he worked as the Production Manager for the Motley Crue Final Tour show. These photos and video offer you a little glimpse into the process of staging a major entertainment tour show at a major venue. I hesitated in posting this. However, after thinking about it, I think many of you will find these behind the scenes photos interesting. No matter the genre of music, the tour process is pretty much the same for any A rated tour whether its Justin Timberlake or the Radio City Rockettes Christmas Show, just two more of the many other tours Patrick has worked on through his years in the business. It begins with months of designing and planning, then the engineering and construction with its testing and approvals. Then vendor hiring, the bus and trucking company, the pyrotechnics crew along with the lighting, sound, video vendors with their equipment and engineers, hiring the riggers who hang the tons of equipment from the venue ceiling, the catering service who feeds everyone with a huge selection of foods for all tastes, even hiring the tour accountants. All of this is taking place while the tour schedule is being finalized with the hundreds of venues around the world. Then the rehearsals begin finally leading to the first show and the start of the tour…… A few Motley facts: This North American Tour started on 7/2/2014 and ends on 11/22/2014 with 72 scheduled shows in 72 different cities across North America. The show requires a convoy of 8 to 10 53 Semi-loads of equipment with enough buses to transport the almost 70 person touring crew. The show typically hires 60 to 70 locals who help with the load-in and load-out of the trucks. Each show is built and staged, performed, and then torn down and loaded out in what is typically a 15 to 18 hour work day. The tour travels to its next venue overnight. On this weekend, Motley performed in Denver on Sat. night, in Kansas City on Sunday night, then on to Sturgis, S.D. for a show on Tues. night, and back to Sioux City, IA for a Wed. performance. 4 shows in 4 different venues in 5 days. What you see in these photos is a small part of the total but it will show you some of the complexity of this show. Next year, this Motley tour will travel across Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. Here is a video of Tommy Lees drum set traveling the roller-coaster rails as he plays above the crowd. https://youtube/watch?v=46dxf37zJdo
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 00:18:24 +0000
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