The Contract Rider for a Concert Tour – An Example

You may know the term “rider” in relation to the food, booze, and brown M&Ms that music artists have in their dressing room (as in “where’s the rider?” and “the opening band drank all the rider”). However, the term “rider” refers to every aspect of the band’s touring needs, from truck parking spaces to humidity onstage. Whereas the contract is an agreement for an individual concert, the contract rider is an agreement for every performance, regardless of any other consideration. It “rides” with the contract, hence the name. And (and this is a big ‘and’) a rider must be approved at the same time as signing the contract.

Concert promoters wont necessarily comply with ‘riders’ that are sent out after the deal has been agreed and the contract signed. Unless the contract rider is annexed to a particular contract, and signed at the same time as the contract, the terms, and demands in the ‘rider’ are unenforceable and therefore are, at best, annoying for the promoter, and at worst, pointless.

The example of a contract rider below is therefore more of a ‘tour production/ information document’. This type of document is sent to the concert promoter or organiser during the ‘advance’ (TK link to advance on CTM page)(a period of time before the start of the tour when the artists team and concert promoters finalise the logistics). The advance takes place after the deal has been done and the contract has been signed.

The purpose of the the production document is to give the promoter a clear idea of what exactly is coming into their venue or festival. It is not a rider in the true sense and I will refer to this type of information as the ‘production document’ in this article.

I will explain some of the box out indications in more detail here.

Cover page

(Please refer to the red call outs on the production document pages above)
Production documents have many pages (an infamous rider/production document for the Foo Fighters is 52 pages ). It therefore makes sense to include a cover page with a numbered contents list. This will help the recipient (concert promoter, venue manager etc) naviagte their way through the information. A good production document will have the pages relating to technical information at the end of the document; these can be detached from a printed version and given to the tech crew more easily.

An expiry date and version number

I explain in this post (Expiry Dates and Version Numbers for Music Touring Documents) the importance of indicating the expiry date for documentation. This ‘versioning’ of tour-related documents is best practice in the live music business and concert production industry.

List the cast & crew

It is always nice to know people’s names. But do not include the contact information of the music artists themselves. And, if travelling by sleeper bus and using trucks, do not forget to list the names of the drivers. They are part of the crew too – just ask Taylor Swift!

Transport

The production document is not a list of demands or stipulations. Instead, it is to inform the concert promoter or festival organiser of what is coming into the venue or field. Listing all the transport being used by the music act is a good idea. This will help the concert team organise parking and power for sleeper tour buses, for instance. Music artist travelling on sleeper buses often arrive in the morning. The promoter will know they must organise early access to the venue for showers and breakfast if they can see information about sleeper buses in the production document.

The length of the artist’s set

The production document is part of a two-way conversation. As well as informing the concert promoter/festival organiser about all aspects of the music artist’s production, the production document should encourage the promoter to provide relevant information to the artists’s team.

This example requests information about the festival set duration. The music artist needs to plan how many songs they will perform for their festival set – knowing the allocated duration at each festival is therefore vital.

Merchandise

I have seen many riders that state the artist refuses to pay any merchandise (‘merch’) concessions to venues or promoters. Unfortunately, these stipulations are not enforceable unless agreed when the deal for the concert is made and the contract signed. Some venues charge music artist to sell their merch, and that’s the end of it.

So, instead, Farry Kisher’s tour manager informs the recipient of the document that they, the band, have merch to sell. She also asks about the concession fee, if applicable.

Catering and Hospitality – as per the contract rider

To be clear, the booking agent and promoter or organiser of the concert should agree to any demands and stipulations made by the music artist when finalising the deal. You can see an example in this contract for a DJ – the catering rider requests are clearly part of the contract.

The promoter will have budgeted to supply food and drink to the artist when making the deal for the concert. Ideally, the promoter will have the artist’s contract rider to hand when doing this. The budgeted amount would, therefore, reflect what the artist has stipulated.

If no rider is available when making the deal, the promoter will enter an amount in the budget for the concert based on their knowledge and experience. The promoter will then spend this amount on catering and hospitality, regardless of the artist’s subsequent demands.

Audio

This section of the production document gives the promoter or organiser information about the audio (sound) requirements of the artist. Again, it is not a list of demands and stipulations. I have seen many riders over the years stating that the PA (venue sound system) must be a certain make and model, or that the engineer won’t use a certain mixing console. Such stipulations are a waste of pixels/ink – the promoter at a 300-capacity venue will not change the audio system for one artist!

Festivals – stage and riser requirements

The rider/production document should provide information for every concert the music artist performs. Therefore, besides information on cast, crew, hospitality, and audio, I’ve included details about the rolling risers we might need for any festival shows the band has booked.

End

That was my brief explanation of the contract rider and the production document used in concert touring. I hope you found this useful and please leave your questions of comments in the ‘Comments’ section below.
Please also read my book, The Live Music Business – Management and Production of Concerts and Festivals to find out more.

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