#031 Technical Director 101

Today's read ...  7️⃣ minutes

Headliner Jordan Goodfellow, has the crew feeling motivated this week with his song pick, 'Legends Are Made' by Sam Tinnesz

Around the world Spain and New Zealand are setting examples for safe and successful events, UK events are still not feeling confident, and Belgium is planning for events sometime soonish. Event workers and ticketing companies are using their skills to help administer COVID vaccines. And we get technical with a TD.

While many US festivals are moving forward with 2021 dates, UK promoters anticipate that their smaller, independent festivals will be in major trouble of hanging in past Easter. Even Glastonbury organizers, who were originally hopeful of a 2021 return, have now announced tickets will rollover to 2022.

Live Nation Belgium is selling tickets to the biggest celebration for the return of live events imaginable, when is it? That’s TBD since well, you know. But they’re pre-selling tickets to their “I Want To Dance Again” in anticipation.

Great news comes from the COVID-19 experiments in Barcelona. They found that cases have not increased as a direct result of their event. Though there’s still more work to be done, this concludes that same-day antigen tests are not associated with an increase in infections.

Even with increased positive results from experiential events, the risk for organizers is still high. Especially when attempting to restart an event without cancellation insurance. Globally, organizations continue to push governments on government-backed insurance schemes that will allow events to proceed with more reassurance.

Ticketing platform, Eventbrite, has taken on a new role as they help Florida’s health department with scheduling COVID-19 vaccine appointments. This has allowed local officials to distribute vaccines fast and efficiently without much support.

The We Make Events organization in Italy, which is made up of event professionals, has begun planning the execution and delivery of vaccines. They’ve already set up plans for 314 hospitals!

As venues place more emphasis on cleanliness, no-touch tech hybrid models, and of course what we all do best - getting creative and thinking outside of the box, BizBash breaks down what it takes for venues to keep guests safe now and moving forward.

New Zealand continues to lead the charge of effective pandemic-event protocols. Their recent events over NYE, with up to 20,000 people, were extremely successful and effectively contained cases that resulted after, stomping any spread.

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Tennessee UnitedThe Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Arena launched the Venue Pledge with the goal to unite live event professionals. The forefront of this initiative is safety. In order to reopen in the safest manner possible, a pledge has been made stressing the importance of cleanliness and safety standards. This is a momentary push for unity amongst the reopening process. We are in this together and the support and guidance is crucial in bringing back events.One For The Roadies

YETI has teamed up with Crew Nation to support the live events industry with the launch of their newest product the Roadie® 24 Cooler. YETI sent artists their newest cooler model to be customized for their unique fans. These coolers are set to be auctioned off to benefit roadies.

"Let the Music Play"

• "£5.8 billion music industry – music tourism alone contributed £4.7 billion to the UK economy in 2019." 

• "UK Music’s Music By Numbers 20202 report live music contributed £1.3 billion directly to the economy in 2019."

The key asks of the UK government include:

1. A return of event date to be set in place

2. Government-backed reinsure policy

3. Financial support in the form of rollover insurance, business relief programs, and VAT rate reduction on tickets.

At BOH we think it’s important to meet, celebrate, and get personal with some of the event industry’s leading thinkers and doers. This week we sat down with Jordan Goodfellow to learn about producing events on snow. Make sure to check back next week for more insider info from our main acts!

I'm Jordan Goodfellow and I'm a CEO and Technical Director from GigRent in Denver, CO. I specialize in the technical management and live event management of both music and corporate events. I've had the privilege to be apart of countless events a learn each time that you're only as good as your last show. Owning and running GigRent has been a huge undertaking and with the addition of our new Streaming platform GigStream, we are ready to move into a new dimension of live and virtual events with tremendous momentum. The last 10 months have been very hard but I'm excited for the future of live events.

The last 20 years have been quite a ride. I started at a small Christian Non-Profit back in 2000 working for their touring Division as an Audio Patch guy and worked my way up to Production Management over the course of a few years. By the time I was 23, I had the privilege of managing and producing 25+ arena events all around the country every year. This catapulted me into the world of live events and really set me on a path that I had not expected at all. Through years of rock and roll touring, I met a great friend on a one-off corporate event in Las Vegas while working for Journey in 2012 and 5 months later I had my first corporate Tour Director (TD) gig. From there it was off to the races and started going back and forth between TD and touring for 3 years before finally deciding on that corporate was going to be home for the foreseeable future.Growing my corporate chops and my small company at the same time became my full-time Job and it was always exciting and many times very difficult.

I love bringing people together through the leadership of a Tour Director by providing direction, solving problems that others do or do not see and helping the entire team accomplish a project that could not be done alone.

I’ve had the privilege of doing 100 person shows in Ballrooms to 70,000 people in a stadium and the one thing I take from every job is that ultimately this work is about gear and people. Nothing else. Venues, companies, bands, they all come and go but those around you, how you work together and execute on a vision are almost always very similar. Working with a team that you love to work with and helping them be perfect together is incredibly rewarding.When you look at a Technical Director, we are individuals who manage and execute on the vision of the Producer, Executive Producer, or end client of any event. As a TD I’m expected to provide solid and actual knowledge of all live event disciplines, including but not limited to: lighting, sound, video, special effects, scenic, and staging. If you ever want to be a TD, this is where to start. 

The Technical Director is one of the most critical components of any event strategy. We’re the glue that holds it all together. 

Have you listened to the GigReady podcast featuring BOH?

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January 13: Learn from the London Museums Group how they are changing the way they operate. Explore lessons learned from how museums are transforming due to COVID, and discuss to what extent they think the changes they implemented will be maintained.

January 25: Entering its 42nd year, INTIX has been a remarkable stage for ticketing industry innovations, bringing our global community together to champion visionary ideas. INTIX 2021 will continue as a place to share successes, launch new products, engage with top vendors, and directly influence and shape the future of ticketing.

​January 27: Explore how the museum sector is enabling positive visitor engagement in an uncertain world, as well as the lessons learned.

February 8: The Sustainable Events Forum is back! Get motivated by new ideas to take action on environmental and sustainable initiatives for events.

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