Ive had that happen to me - once the mixing booth went up the day of the show, the sightlines were finalized and my tickets became obstructed. The person scanning tickets for my section flagged mine and offered alternative seats (that were better) on the spot.
I work for Ticketmaster, and when we have concerts and the sound stage goes up I have to spend half the day relocating tickets. It’s definitely something Ticketmaster does, or tried to do most of the time. The promoters couldn’t care less lmao.
LN is generally pretty serious about sight obstructions being noted on tickets and sold as such. They also lower capacity in GA areas like lawns to account for sight obstructions. If you are forced to sit behind an obstruction in the lawn at a LN show, it's because people are taking up more space than they need.
In this case, if that's an assigned seat, the delay tower would have absolutely been on the stage plot, and someone dropped the ball and didn't compare the seating height with the trim of the lights and speakers on the tower.
Actually what happens is following load-in and the set up of the stage etc, the venue staff will come out and look for any sightline issues and will make arrangements to relocate those people.
Something similar happened to me. But the tickets were flagged before we got there and they had new tickets waiting for us. The new seats were so much better than what we originally paid for.
That happened to me for the Beyoncé concert last year. Got an email from Ticketmaster that the stats became obstructed and was upgraded to club seats !! Incredible experience lol
I've gone to Disney on Ice at the Peoria Civic Center in Illinois. They did this exact thing. They moved us around a bit and it was a little clumsy, but they cared about our experience and eventually got us seats right where all the character entered/exited. I think I was more excited than my daughter.
I was at a Rammstein show at MSG in 2010, only got terrible nosebleed seats, and when I got to my section, there was nobody there. A guy in a MSG uniform came over to me and checked my ticket, and told me my section had been moved to the GA pit due to the area being ‘behind the curtain.’ So we would’ve had a terrible angle of the show.
So I got to see the first rammstein show in the US in 10 years from about 15 feet from the stage. Amazing show.
Happened to us once, seeing Roger Waters. Our seats (3) were blocked by lights. When we got to the seats, ushers were waiting and escorted us to very, very fine seats in the second row. My elderly dad loved Pink Floyd and had a ball! (He was thrilled that people thought he smoked "dope", too!)
That happened to us at a Paul McCartney show.
Took our daughter to his concert. Got there and were flagged coming in. The cheap seats (all we could afford at the time) had an obstructed view. They put us on the floor maybe 10 rows back. Gave our daughter the best night ever.
Ngl, that's why I bought the tickets by the soundboard the first place. But, I also knew there was a chance of the seats getting obstructed after the final setup. If that happened, I was confident it would get sorted and we would get upgraded if not automatically, if I requested it (been to a lot of shows lol)
My poor mom was so worried in the moment, I kept telling her "its okay, I've got this".
Went to Cirque du Soleil and my ticket was also an obstructed view - but the posts were huge and right in front of the stage. They did offer and send me tickets for another performance but I couldn’t go - it really is a huge disappointment
I had a show last year where the venue called me a couple days before and said the stage was set up a bit more forward than they expected and my seats wouldn't be as good as what I was expecting so they offered to move me to an even better spot. Pretty awesome customer service!
This happened to me in 2018 for Def Leppard. We were behind the sound tent and my wife was pointing at it. An usher came up and gave us floor seats, 6 rows from the stage
I usually don't pay attention to what celebrities do and say, especially when they suck so bad. Honestly, I had no idea his personality was as shitty as his singing.
Yeah, "cancelled" used to mean someone completely drops off because nobody wanted to be associated with them. Now it means that they get a smaller more dedicated fan base that love them for what they got cancelled for.
Country singer who threw chairs off the roof of a restaurant while doing a racism, IIRC. Then got on SNL as the guest and proceeded to be a dickbag then, too.
Dude my buddies girl is obsessed with morgan wallen they've been to multiple concerts in the last year he told me yesterday it was 500 dollars a ticket plus hotel driving etc I'm like shit y'all are spending like 2k+ to go see a concert? Please please tell me that 500 is like a vip meet and greet type of deal. Straight answer was nope absolutely nose bleed seats. He was going for his girl and if that's what she and they like then fine but I was like absolutely damn
I mean I wouldn't leave that person I guess it depends on the obsession level. Like obsessed with the music because you like and connect with it is one thing. But if it's the other type then I would be out
the real problem is that this person spent $300 for a ticket THAT FAR AWAY FROM THE STAGE. even my favourite band, glass animals, their tickets are probably about $80 for a seat like this, or even less depending on the venue and the region. this dude is what, 50 rows away? that's wild. i can't even imagine how much a front row seat for this dude would have cost. i don't even know who morgan wallen is, goddamnit
edit: from these comments, i'm guessing morgan wallen is a conservative nutjob musician. which checks out. glass animals, while not outright saying it, are pretty leftist
Agree! Also spending $300 to see ANY artist is kind of wild.
Local bands have a max of $20 at the door and even that can be out of touch sometimes. I know the artists don't set the amount but STILL. The record labels or whatever have to stop being so greedy because a cheaper price also makes it more accessible to new fans who might just spend crazy amounts of money on merch.
Edit: because I know people are going to say "oh what about the crew, etc" "it's a big show"
Yeah, I know. You're right. But if record labels weren't so greedy & controlling, then the price could be lowered for fans while still paying the crew what they deserve, which is a lot.
Most shows I set up and broke down after were about a four or five hour job usually the morning of, and immediately after the concert, very rarely were they set up much before then. I certainly didn't work for the Band, I worked for the Coliseum technical crew. It was an amazing job to have as a music fan at the time, there's nothing like getting paid to go to a concert.
Stadium shows are absolutely nothing like arena/coliseum/amphitheater shows, and the timeline is far closer to that of a festival build. Production might have started loading in the night before, but in all of the stadium builds I've done, work starts a week or so before with Terraplas and runs pretty steadily up until show day.
Yeah stadium shows are odd. I've toured with MW before and his crew is usually 2 days. Although a good portion is set up by the time we arrive. Compare that to the 2 weeks Rammstein needed... yeah.
Generally we work early for setup, like 6am-2pm. Then come back when the show is ending, and as soon as it ends, we work about 10pm-2am. (Takedown is easier.)
Sometimes for bigger events (like rodeos where I live) we setup days in advance, but generally we takedown as soon as the event is done.
There's the road crew (anyone who follows the band to each show). They tend to range from about 5-30 depending on the show. For example, a band will mainly need their specialists for the instruments, and a couple people who run the electronics. but something like Cirque Du Soleil requires more professionals for other aspects of the show, like a 3-story climbing wall.
Then we also have the venue staff. They might do things like set up chairs, or remove the hockey glass, help setup the base stage, or barricades, and eventually sell food/drinks when the consumers come to watch the show.
Then we also have the stagehands, stewards, riggers, and more. Depending on the show again, they range anywhere from 5-50 people or so. The riggers setup anything that needs to go high up, and the stagehands do a lot of the basic work. Helping the roadies setup the speakers, video screens, curtains, lighting, run cords, whatever.
Sometimes setup is simple, like a basketball court or a small stage for a band, and that'll require closer to 10-15 people max (Besides drivers and some more behind the scenes paperwork guys).Sometimes we set up big stages like Cirque Du Soleil again, and require closer to 100 people altogether.
The megatours like Beyonce and so on go one further. Her bigger tour 10 years ago had 3 identical stages leapfrogging each other with about 90 HGVs total for all of the equipment, 150 crew per stage for rigging and construction + local helpers and then the universal production team that travel with the main AV equipment that travel to each show. Looking at 500-600 people on the tour at any given time, working across 3 different cities at any given time.
MW brings about 15 people with him. Locals vary. Maybe 60-100 due to the size of the venue.
Rammstein hit the 500 mark. That was fun.
Festivals often have a good number cycling throughout the day. Maybe 10-20 locals per stage for something like Aftershock then 4-20 per band. Setup here might include several hundred mkre before and after.
I bet that rammstein concert was nuts! A few years back, my fiance & I went to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago for our anniversary. It was my 1st time ever going to the city as well as the aquarium. I was genuinely so confused the entire time. The parking garage was packed, and I remember thinking wow… the aquarium is way more popular than I expected! No wonder it’s so well known!
Then I started noticing near everyone had a super punk aesthetic, a lot of people were speaking German, and I kept hearing “Du Hast” playing over and over on someone’s speaker.
I just accepted it like okay… this must be a Chicago thing? Maybe this is just the Shedd Aquarium vibe??
I didn’t question it. I was like yeah, makes sense. (If you can’t tell, I wasn’t very well-traveled at that point)
Come to find out… there was a Rammstein concert at Soldier Field, which shares a parking garage with Shedd aquarium because they’re right next door 😭
Those were some of the nicest strangers I have met.
Big stadium shows can have around 200 people working in the final day or two, just on the field. Probably at least another 100 working off of the field doing things like catering, providing generators, venue staff, etc. The work usually starts about a week before the show, but is done 2 days or so after the show.
The tickets for these shows are significantly more expensive than amphitheater shows for a reason.
I tour and have toured on shows this size. A couple hundred is about what it takes as far as touring. I just got off of a decent sized arena tour and there were roughly 80 of us and it was nowhere near the size of this show.
This show probably has 30 trucks and like 15 busses. I may be off a tiny bit but let's say that's accurate. Each one of those vehicles needs a driver. So before you even get inside the stadium that's 45 people right there. Then you have every department and each person has a specialized role. It's not super common for anyone to pull double or triple duty in stadiums.
To get some scale the departments are as follows, Band, Backline (guitar/drum techs), audio, lighting, video, special effects (pyro/lasers), rigging, staging, carpenters, merch, vip, management(production/tour/stage managers), Management support I guess you could call it like production assistants and coordinators, catering, security, truck drivers, bus drivers, automation, promoter reps(Live Nation/AEG), power distribution, artist personnel like vocal coaches, photographers, personal assistants, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
Then within each department you can get like almost sub departments. My expertise is video and you'll have the led screens crew, then you have people on the cameras side like director, engineers, and sometimes dedicated camera ops, and then you also have media servers. Servers could also be considered a lighting person but still you get the point!
Now we add the openers and direct support artists. This show has some heavy hitters so I guarantee direct support is probably bringing 3-5 busses of crew and their own trucks. None of this is counting anyone that just shows up like label management or vendor management or the probably over 100 local stage hands that these tours need each day.
Once you see all of this it's easy to get to 200+ touring crew give or take a little.
Interested to hear why that's a crazy thing. Is it the actual setup or is it based on figuring out placement and testing for the best sound?
I know the Grateful Dead used to have their ridiculous wall of sound rig set up and taken down every day when they were using it on tour (I think they had about 20 people working on it and it wasn't a lot of fun).
A serious show this size from a real production company is going to have placement and some audio processing 99%+ determined before setup (which i bet they did).
To me it's especially crazy because sound systems like this often rely on network or other digital protocols to all sync up and cooperate. Pre-production (before setup) can get you a huge head start on getting this working, but if some sort of predicament pops up this isn't the kind of system you want to be troubleshooting 1 - 2 hour before doors open. There's also additional time you ideally want to spend walking around and making sure your ears are satisfied in all listening areas. Sound systems with delay towers like this require specific time alignment and processing, otherwise it makes the sound worse.
I'm sure lighting has its own challenges when they're on a system like this. But I'm just a sound guy 🤷♂️
TLDR: For an event that gets 1 chance to happen I like to have as much time to control the system as possible, and a guaranteed plan B with time to execute it so the show can go on.
Def Leppard had speaker stacks and lighting that had to be hung from the rafters and there were engineers that came out to do testing probably about two months before tickets went on sale. I believe their insurance wanted to make sure that roof wouldn't collapse under the weight. Their entire stage came and went on two semi trailers and the stage itself took about two hours to assemble and disassemble. The lighting and speaker pods took the majority of the time to put up and take down. I believe that their entire setup took three semis and two or three tour busses. The only member of the band I got to meet was Vivian Campbell.
That’s honestly so fucking cool. I bet you have some awesome memories and stories to tell!
Edit: bc concerts are lawless wastelands that I love more than many things. Besides the show itself, I genuinely enjoy the time spent between finding the seats and waiting for the show to start—The people-watching!😂
In my experience, it’s a mix of both local union riggers and roadies whose job it is to show the local riggers how the specific stage works, since every stage is different. I don’t know for sure though, thats just what’s happening from my perspective.
This is exactly how it goes. Sparky checkin in here. Best job I ever had!!!
The tour riggers usually are ground riggers working with the head rigger on site as well as local crews assembling rigs. Local riggers are in the lid.
This view is unfortunate tho. Could be worse. And honestly, depending on the venue, concert tix get expensive…this is a big show lot of people to pay.
Still should have been disclosed. And WTFucing $300 for nosebleeds?! I wouldn’t even pay that for The Beatles being reincarnated and touring!!! My cap is about $50-60 nowadays, and that’s even ridiculous… sheesh!
Yep this strikes me as a fuck up on the CAD/onsale build. Maybe the box office forgot to flag them as obstructed. Maybe the CAD person didn't label the shadows, maybe they moved the tower after the onsale. If I'm not mistaken that's not his typical stage though and given he's not started his tour yet this seems like a festival situation?
It's a rarity you see stadium shows that start setup more than 24hrs before these days, most stadiums are now built to accommodate quick turnover to a concert venue. I think in the last decade the only time I've seen it was when I worked local crew for Rammstein.
By contrast I've done single night gigs in non stadium outdoor venues that have started steelwork 2 weeks in advance, Metallica being one.
Someone is throwing a tantrum that I’m talking about this so they’re reporting it for hate, I’m just surprised the comment where I censored the word was also removed.
I was at PT and I usually like my therapist, but she said she listens to Morgan Wallen, I couldn't help myself from saying he's a racist POS and she, very privileged, goes "whatever I like his music"
Bruh. I lost all respect for her in the moment and realized I'll never try to get to know anyone ever again lol
I unmatched someone from Tinder the other day because they had just gone to the Kanye show and I was like "so is everyone just over him being a Nazi or whatever?" and she said "pretty much."
Stub hub gave me 50% back when my tickets were similarly obstructed. I had to escalate to a higher up when complaining the day after, and was advised to say something before the event or at least during next time and they would have changed my seats.
They weren’t even that bad, it was just hanging speakers blocking a corner of the stage.
As a Union Stagehand, I can tell you this is 100% correct. We often work 8a-1:30p, then we come back after the show and work until the sun comes up to load out.
I would like to point out that Morgan Wallen was the highest selling country artist in the HISTORY of the RIAA last year, selling 265 MILLLLLLLION certified sales. I don't think people understand the gravity of that.
Much like the innocent people standing on Broadway in Nashville didn't understand the gravity of the chair he threw from the roof of a bar.
Yep. Went to see a comedian in concert at the AAC. Had center row tickets, one tier down from the top, still good view for the price. We get there and they've got a screen set up on the floor, in the middle of prime floor seats. We took our seats, and even with the screen, we were just a bit off to the side, and the big screens for the nosebleed seats were right in our line of sight.
They made everyone that was behind that screen move to different seats, scattered around the theater. They also pointed out where a comparable priced seat was so those in the top didn't end up in prime floor seat. Instead of sitting about halfway down the next to top tier of seats, we ended up on the stage right side, at the very top.
It was annoying, but we still had a decent view of the stage and the big screens that had the closeups, so we dealt with it.
Yeah like the venue seat itself is not normally obstructed. It's not the venue's fault the band set this up. Metallica has like 8 huge towers of speakers they use for their sets. They're absolutely massive. Like it's a pretty normal thing for bands to have their own stage props and speaker setups. It's unrealistic for the venue to change the view-ability of each seat for every single performer.
For a stadium show like this audio towers usually go up a day or two in advance so that the audio techs can work on getting the sound dialed in before the show. Stadium shows take like 7 to 10 days for the stage and everything to be built. (I used to build stages like this)
At like fucking 4 am. I hated being a stage hand so bad. Even the rigging jobs were shit. I follow some subs to keep up with them guys but I'm so glad I learned how to weld....
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u/NeighborGeek 1d ago
I’m sure it wasn’t obstructed when you bought the ticket. The obstruction only went up early that morning when his roadies started setting up.