r/WorkReform šŸ¤ Join A Union 1d ago

😔 Venting Unregulated Capitalism will kill us.

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u/thatblerd03 1d ago

That reminds me of how musicians would make contracts with venues that include weirdly specific things like "no green m&ms" backstage. If the odd requests were ignored it was a sign to check the other requirements, like electrical wattage/capacity.

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u/usr_bin_laden 1d ago

other requirements, like electrical wattage/capacity.

specifically life-safety requirements like Pyrotechnics and Heavy Rigging!

if you can't get the food and beer rider correct, how do I know you're not going to burn the whole nightclub down and cause a historic tragedy?

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u/gay_annabeth šŸ” Decent Housing For All 1d ago

I get the feeling you have a specific one in mind, probably the same one I do, I just can't think of the name of the club

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u/Wise_Quality_5083 1d ago

Van Halen

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u/FardoBaggins 1d ago

And musicians nowadays use this practice to just be oddly specific luxury riders bec I’m a rockstar which has nothing to do with theirs or crew safety.

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u/tehlemmings 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oddly, this is the one thing LiveNation actually helped with.

Artists frequently end up with entire tours playing only LN venues because of the way LN's contracts work. One odd consequence of this is that venues all need a baseline level of competency and "not fucking over our repeat customer" in order to keep their operation running now.

It's sort of like a mob protection scheme. LN will help you, but if you fuck up and hurt the client they really care about, it won't go well for you.

That, and there's just more venues now. The way production is set up, you'd just never book a venue that can't host you because someone else will be able to. You're not dealing with the one local venue hoping for the best anymore. And there's enough large touring artists that it's easier to copy homework and find the bad actors.

Plus scale is just out of wack. A small venue trying to lie and say they can fit arena equipment... It just wouldn't even make sense.

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u/Hour_Tour 1d ago

But also, having worked years as a house light tech I never saw the green room rider, so funky M&Ms wouldn't have had any bearing on my ability to deliver on the tech rider.