What roadies actually do – and why they’re indispensable to live music

By Gabrielle Kielich, University of Huddersfield

This summer, millions of fans will attend a music festival in the UK to watch their favourite artists perform. If you’re one of them, then while waiting in between acts or witnessing technical mishaps onstage, you may notice the ubiquitous presence of the workers who help musicians make it all happen – commonly referred to as “roadies”.

Despite being repeatedly described as the “unsung heroes” of live music, the numerous songs that have made them the subject of lyrics, and campaigns to assist them during the COVID pandemic, roadies have rarely received focused attention on what they actually do.

I have recently written a book on roadies titled The Road Crew: Live Music and Touring that explores their working lives and everyday experience of being on tour.

Roadies are fundamental workers in the fulfilment of live music events and concert tours. They are much more than “humpers” who haul road cases and equipment in and out of venues and festivals. Roadies are directly responsible for essential elements of a concert, like the sound quality and working order of instruments. They ensure all the aspects are in place to enable the successful delivery of live music to the audience, as well as being readily available to troubleshoot if something goes wrong.

In between shows, they coordinate and participate in the complex process of touring – moving all of the people and equipment involved in the concert event to cities and music festivals. Roadies also play an important supporting role in the everyday lives of musicians on tour.

But what exactly is a roadie? At once generic and vague, the term suggests that their role has something to do with being on tour (“on the road”). It does not, however, reveal much at all about the features of their jobs and exactly what activities they handle to make a concert come to life. In actuality, roadies are highly specialised workers that each play a particular part in the process of live music.

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