Backstage Rider

  Aol had a story on artists and what they require backstage from the event planners or venue agent.  I have some close up knowledge of just how childish these "entertainers" can be.

I worked for quite a few years as a party planner/wedding planner for a well known caterer in our area.  We used to pick up a lot of work at some of the larger entertainment halls in  our area.

Waning Rock & Roll groups, long past retirement age solo artists, and over night one stop wonders...all wanting to be catered to.

Now it might sound fascinating to the uneducated mind the fact that you would literally rub elbows with "famous" people...but the truth is is a long, hot, demanding job that starts around 5 am in the morning, because someone has to "cook" their breakfast.  That shouldn't be  too hard right? Wrong, these people travel by huge buses, trucks filled with backstage crew, musicians and hanger on support types.  So you are looking at a breakfast of 20 to 35 people and more often than not they want the whole bonanza...individually cooked to order eggs, bacon, toast, butter, coffee, milk, 17 different juices, doughnuts, coffeecake, rolls, etc. Then you get to do that all over again for lunch and don't forget dinner. You get to drag yourself home after putting in a good twelve hours or so. Who can even hear the music after that??

God forbid, something that was on the rider is left off or not enough of it is provided. You would believe you took Christmas away.

Once, for an Australian singer...her stagehands had a total melt down because we ran out of whole milk, now mind you we had three frigging gallons of milk...they devoured it in the morning not the coffee...who knew? We had 2% but that was dismissed as "piss water". Of course, we sent someone out for more milk...but the damage was done. The poor dear didn't get what he wanted, when he wanted it and no amount of apologies could appease him. Believe me I tried.

Another time for Englebert Humperdink we were to prepare a really good T-bone and he wanted it just perfect, medium rare. Now we are not cooking in a kitchen, we have an electric grill with a fry pan on top...we are "making do" in the dressing room.  The rest of his crew and there were maybe forty people were set up dinning room style with banquet tables and had choice of a chicken dish or a beef dish, assorted veggies, salad, rolls, butter...the food was good - that we cooked offsite and brought in. We had a great chef his name was Paul.

Well the girl that was cooking it didn't cook it well enough...it actually was still cold in the center and very raw. So it was returned with an admonishment to "please try to get it right this time".  The next time she did, but they were not as friendly as they were before dinner.

When you get these "riders" they spell out exactly what the artist likes, wants and desires. You best had better get it all too, and extra just in case.

Those of you who know me, know that I am not a ga-ga type of person.  I learned a long time ago that we all put our pants one one leg at a time and no one for the last 2,000 has walked on water either. So I treated the people with a bit of respect for their profession but was not intimidated by them or their "star" status.  Reading that story today made me think of all these times....just have to laugh.