Tour Rider
I was looking at Greg Oliver Agency site last night. This agency books mainstream contemporary Christian music artists like Geoff Moore, 4 Him and many others.
The riders are quite interesting to read. We are hosting a worship conference at our church next week-end. And one of the groups is insisting on bringing their own sound person. Taking in to account that we have multiple acts and a full tech team supporting the event, I am not onside with the request at all. The group does not tour and they would have the same calibre of sound support in their own church environment. Actually better as our folks know our systems.
It is interesting to see how many mainstream acts are fine with using in-house engineers. You can see all the gruesome details in one of the riders below:
AUDIO EQUIPMENT SPECIFICATIONS 4HIM
“TRACK DATE- PROMOTER PROVIDES SOUND & LIGHTS”?
REVISED 12/04HOUSE MIX POSITION
1-Minimum 32 channel mixing console with 4 bands of e.q. with at least two bands being sweepable. Console should have 6 aux sends. (Midas, Yamaha, Allan & Heath) Please no MACKIE!!
1-Reverb unit (T.C. Electronics M-One, Yamaha spx 900-990 or Rev 5)
1-Digital Delay unit (T.C. Electronics D-Two, Roland SDE 3000, preferably with a tap)
4-Channels of insertable compression (DBX 166 or equivalent)
2-1/3 Octave EQ”™s (system should be “rung out”? by house system”™s tech, prior to 4HIM”™s arrival)
1-CD player ( NO PORTABLE CAR DISCMAN)HOUSE SPEAKERS AND AMPLIFIERS
The house speaker cabinets are to be comprised of professional, “state of the art”? (current technology) components. The system is to be operated in stereo, and must be adequately powered by professional quality amplifiers (e.g. Crown, Crest, QSC) suggested systems:
– Meyer, Turbosound floodlight/flashlight, EAW 850 series, etc.
– The speaker arrays shall be actively crossed over (minimum 3-way stereo) with accompanying sub cabinets. These arrays shall be designed to give even coverage over 180 degrees without phase of lobing errors.
– The speaker and amplifier sysem shall be capable of producing sound pressure levels of 115dB (The Decibel levels listed relate to the fidelity of the system versus the volume). ”˜A”™ weighted with a bandwitdth range of 30hz to 18khz +/- 1dB at the house mix position.MONITOR MIX
4him is using wireless In Ear Monitors Systems that they will be bringing with them. They have 4 systems. All 4 systems will be run in mono.BACKLINE
1-Keyboard (Korg 01W, Roland D-50, Yamaha P100, etc.)
1-Sustain pedal
1-Keyboard stand
2-¼”? shielded cables (minimum 10”™ long)
Note: A grand piano properly mic”™d should replace the keyboard specifications.MISCELLANEOUS
Please Set up Stands as per STAGE PLOT
4-Straight stands
3-Boom stands
2-Guitar Stands
Please have available for backup purposes
4-Shure SM58 wired microphones
2-Active DI boxes
2-1/4”? shielded cables (minimum 25”™ long)LABOR
1-FOH systems technician who is knowledgeable of the audio system, rigging, troubleshooting, etc.
1-Monitor technician/ engineer who will be mixing monitors for us during sound check and the concert. (Where a separate mix position is available)IMPORTANT NOTES:
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL ARTIST SHARE INPUT CHANNELS, MONITOR MIXES, MICROPHONES, STANDS, CABLING, SUB SNAKES, A/C/ POWER OR ANY AUDIO EQUIPMENT OF ANY KIND WITH ANY OTHER ACT PERFORMING ON THE SAME BILL.
THE TOUR MANAGER IS TO HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER SOUND PRESSURE LEVELS, HOUSE LIGHTING LEVELS, AND CLIMATE CONTROL. NOTIFY TOUR MANAGER IMMEDIATELY REGARDING ANY LOCAL RESTRICITIONS SUCH AS A SOUND PRESSURE LIMIT.
I thought this part was funny:
“1-CD player ( NO PORTABLE CAR DISCMAN)”
Hehe 🙂
I’ve laughed at a few “Christian artist” riders.
Nice to see so little backline…man that can cost ya. Unless of course you’re paying to get the whole band and crew into town…then you have to pay travel, accomodations, and haul all their gear around.
I’ll never forget getting one band on the stage for a sound check and they’d left all their guitars and gear back at the hotel in their rooms. We had all this backlline in place…..There members of the band were in such a snit because they assumed it was our job (my team) to remember their gear in their rooms…rooms none of us had been in. So we all stood there on the stage staring at each other. I finally said, “Hey, I guess I’ll go get all your stuff for ya.” A half yawn reply came from the drummer scratching his butt…”ya, well isn’t it in our contract or somethin’ that you remember our stuff.”
I shook my head all the way to the hotel….
If a church carves out a talent agreement, then they can carve away on the rider…cross out everything not needed. It’s all cookie-cutter stuff anyways. There’s most likely 10 bands with the same agency using the same rider…
Sure there’s quality, but the funny thing is….to be able to read this rider, you have to be in the music industry, and by the look of it, be willing to shell out a lot of cash.
When was it that we started charging each other so much to do ministry?
“Sorry son, you’ll have to shell out $20 bucks to worship God tonight.”
“But I can’t afford it! And my conscience won’t let me download a pirated copy of your cd from TorrentSpy…sniff sniff.”