Backstage Spotlight™
July 2003
Each month in Backstage
Spotlight™, musicbizadvice.com profiles one of the unsung superheroes of the music
industry, the people who work behind the scenes. This month the Spotlight is on rigger
Rich Lundstrom of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who's logged over 20 years in the live end of the
music business.
For those who don't know, what exactly does a rigger
do, and whom do you work with?
A rigger is responsible for the overhead support of all the portable show gear being
suspended from the venue ceiling. Stuff like lighting trusses, sound clusters, video
walls, screens, special effects, and anything else someone (or anyone) thinks is needed. |
A capacity crowd at Alpine Valley Music
Theatre, Milwaukee, WI. Photo courtesy Tom Wojcik, Clear Channel.
Touring shows usually have a master rigger, who travels with the show and is responsible
for seeing that the equipment is going to hang in the right place. He/she will work with
the local riggers, who know the venue, and work out a plan on how everything will be hung.
An average tour may have 50,000 pounds of assorted show parts to put up in the air. And
you have about four to six hours in which to accomplish that.
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