Show dictionary · Production Management
Rider
Also: tech rider · hospitality rider
A rider is the attachment that "rides" along with a performance contract, listing everything the artist requires from the buyer. The technical rider specifies production needs (PA, consoles, backline, inputs, power, crew); the hospitality rider covers dressing rooms, catering, and transportation.
In practice
The technical rider is the document the advance is built on: stage plot, input list, console preferences, monitor needs, rigging and power requirements, and the crew calls the production expects. Promoters and production companies price shows off the rider, which is why an out-of-date one costs real money in both directions.
Hospitality riders are the famous ones (the brown M&Ms clause in Van Halen’s rider was, by the band’s own account, a compliance test: if the candy was wrong, the technical rider probably had not been read either). Working riders are mostly mundane: meals, towels, dressing room furniture, runner requirements, and guest list counts.
How you’ll hear it
"The rider calls for two 8-mix monitor worlds; the house has one console. Who is advancing this?"
Related resources
Part of the eventools.io Show Dictionary, a free glossary of live event production terminology.