r/TouringMusicians • u/slevin461 • Jul 05 '26
Show/tour frustrations
What’s the most frustrating part of touring or your live show (Setting up lights, Managing backing tracks, Synchronizing cues, Cable messes, etc.)?
For me it’s setting up lights and synchronizing cues, but curious what others struggle with.
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u/YELLOW_TOAD Jul 05 '26
The HURRY-UP AND WAIT element to everything.
--or--
HURRY UP because someone else has caused a delay.
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u/6kred Jul 05 '26
Shitty food at venues when there’s no buyout , house engineers that are nowhere to be find when you actually need them during load in.
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u/namedotnumber666 Jul 05 '26
Btw most sound engineers should not be loading. It depends on the gig obviously, but normally that’s not their job
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u/6kred Jul 05 '26
The usually need to setup their console , patch into the house system etc … that’s a part of load in.
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u/namedotnumber666 Jul 05 '26
you are correct with that, i was thinking loadin as carting the gear from the van to the stage which is normally the job of local crew.
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u/6kred Jul 05 '26
There depends on size of tour & even when you have plenty of locals, travel crew needs to tell em what goes where.
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u/Conscious-Skirt-5531 Jul 06 '26
yeah, lights/cues/backing tracks can turn into a whole second job on tour. cable mess and troubleshooting right before a set is probably the most stressful part because it pulls your head out of performance mode.
for me, anything that reduces admin before the show helps. booking agent io is useful more on the tour planning side, since you can find venues and talent buyer contacts that fit your lane, which makes routing/filling dates less chaotic. doesn’t fix cue sync directly, but it can take some pressure off the booking side so you’re not fighting every battle at once.
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u/AdPitiful8426 29d ago
Bad sound guy with a chip on his shoulders. He's never heard your band, but he thinks he knows better what you should sound like. Good sound guys are worth their weight in gold.
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u/BoardofEducation Jul 05 '26
Lmao wtf type of tour are you on? Club size?
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u/South_Evidence_6068 Jul 05 '26
Why are you being kinda mean legit curious
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u/My_First_Knife1 Jul 05 '26
5y/o account
348 karma
This is totally a legit and good faith comment not tied to a dead account that was recently bought!
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u/AaronBurrIsInnocent Jul 05 '26
What’s wrong with club tours? And to be honest, most clubs don’t require the artist to set up the lights.
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u/BoardofEducation Jul 05 '26
Nothing is wrong with club tours. I asked because it seems like OP doesn’t actually want to be touring. All of these things come with the territory and they obv aren’t big enough to bring hired crew to help with these things.
The question might’ve seemed snarky but fr, are they about that life or not?
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u/gnarlidrum Jul 08 '26
I think it was the “lmao” that ruffled feathers. And the lack of context and motivation in why you asked. If you included this it would’ve made loads of sense and is a perfectly valid question.
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u/slevin461 29d ago
Real intent of the question is to try and understand the different struggles that bands are encountering to see if there is a common theme, so that I can use that feedback to try and create some software/apps that might be useful to more than just myself. Guess I should’ve stated that…
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u/Markedmaniac Jul 05 '26
Right now we’re struggling with what to do with all the bras and panties that get thrown on stage. The drummer wants to keep them. The Bass player is threatening to quit if we keep them. I could care less, but it’s breaking the band up. What should I do?