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Artists can’t wait to get back on tour, but after more than a year on hiatus for the Covid-19 pandemic, the live events industry faces a potential worker crisis: not enough roadies.
The concerts take place in a world of contracts, with workers moving from concert to concert, from tour to tour. Without live events, however, many technicians in the stage, lighting and sound, ticket offices and ushers took on other jobs.
“No one has seen a year without work,” said Michael Strickland, managing director of lighting company Bandit Lites. “As you continue, you have lost people along the way mentally, physically, spiritually, and economically.”
The concern of event planners is that these workers may not return, having worked in other jobs that may be more stable, more lucrative or offer benefits like insurance or retirement options. A generation of apprentices is also lost, the youngest workers who would have learned the trade, eager to move from the warehouse gig to the local show and the national tour.
Mr Strickland, who has become a liaison between the concert industry and decision-makers in worker and venue support, estimates that a third of pre-pandemic workers will not return to the live events business.
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