Tour Manager Berates Staff, They Revenge With Bad Feedback

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mattstaff
Nov 6, 2019 12:00 AM EST

This tour manager decided to berate and talk down to his staff, and ended up paying the ultimate price. You see, that staff that's responsible for making sure things run smoothly decided to tinker with the feedback. Sounds like that alone ended up costing the guy his job. Yikes. 

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  • 01
    Text - r/ProRevenge u/magicduk 7h + JOIN tour manager thinks he knows better than the technical staff for a big name comedian, probably cost his job... So this happened quite a few years ago. I used to work as a senior technician for a large entertainment venue (around 2000 standing capacity). Most of the time we would have private events etc, but this particular day a very well known comedian was booked to do an hour at the venue
    via u/magicduk
  • 02
    Text - Before the show I was expected to meet with his tour manager, discuss his needs, set up stuff etc. He arrives and immediately sets the tone. Personally I think they thought they were "too big" to play our venue, but they clearly didn't know what they got into. "Dave wont use any of your crappy mics, he tours with his own sound system" "Sure, when is it getting here"
    via u/magicduk
  • 03
    Text - "I've got it with me" the manager said in the most condescending tone ever. He proceeded to pull out a self contained speaker system, no bigger than a suitcase. There was no way it was going to fill the first two rows of tables, never mind the rest of the venue, which would be at capacity that night. "No problem, I can give you a tie line so you can use our speakers" "That's not acceptable. Dave will only speakers and mic." To cut a long story short, I spent about 15 minutes arguing with
    via u/magicduk
  • 04
    Text - (Edit for clartity: he was very aggressive and condescending. At a few points he tried to claim I didn't know what I was doing, and that I shouldn't be employed by the company as I was clueless - no matter how much l explained the science etc. He tried to scare me into doing what he wanted by threatening to pull the show - there was no need for this, it was him being stubborn and trying to pull power thinking I would back down and let him cause serious complaints for the venue because of
    via u/magicduk
  • 05
    Text - The tour manager had set up a little sound desk at the side of the stage for him to use for "Dave's" microphone. He was standing their throughout the show "mixing his mic". Where he put himself meant he couldn't hear how it sounded, but could be seen by everyone. My lighting OP and I were at the back of the room a few hundred feet away and hatched our plan. The first few minutes of the show were fine until the tour manager moved away from his desk to listen. As he walked away for some str
    via u/magicduk
  • 06
    Text - The tour manager was puzzled. He couldn't understand why this was happening and Dave was getting more and more irate, glaring at his manager throughout the act. What they didn't know was that I was watching the manager, and every time he stepped away I turned up the high frequencies on my desk causing the feedback. As he got to the desk I would correct it and get rid of the feedback myself. Rinse and repeat. He got so annoyed he came to the back of the venue, barged into our control box a
    via u/magicduk
  • 07
    Text - "Have you touched your desk?" "No mate... actually I did once. Seemed like you struggling with feedback so I took a bit of the top out." He walked away sheepishly back to his desk, about halfway there the mic started feeding back again, this time quite aggressively. He had to run the last 50 foot or so which only drew more attention to him, especially from Dave the comedian
    via u/magicduk
  • 08
    Text - On his way out the venue I heard the tour manager being chewed out by Dave, about how incompetent he was. Few years later I meet Dave at another venue I'm working at. Turns out hes a decent enough guy. Didn't mention the revenge I did on the tour manager, but told him about the gig. Turns out it was one of the last times he used that manager, one of the reasons being how bad that gig was... TL:DR tour manager thinks he can berate staff and talk down to them, so crew cause feedback during
    via u/magicduk

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