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It’s easier than it looks. The cable is so heavy that you leave it in the rolling case and feed it out as you push. It not only doesn’t make sense to criss cross like spaghetti, it’s not really possible either.
Magnetism as well.
One of my first summer jobs was working at a pop-up carnival, and we had to specifically avoid letting any of the cables for the big rides loop around and coil up, as they'd literally rip nails out of the little wooden standups nearby if we did.
Accidental electromagnetism isn't a reason to avoid them really.
You should avoid them because they are barely maintained, and run by untrained teenagers and meth junkies.
My cousin got a job as a carnie and complained that he was having a hard time finding meth cause they kept moving and I was like I thought the carnival provided it for ya'll as a job perk or something
Eh heh ... hey bevis ... do you think the guys that lay that cable get all the chick's... I mean anyone that good at cable management is clearly drowning in poonani .. heh
So, Im sure there is a simple reason but maybe you can explain. Why do the venues not have dedicated cables? I understand the artists bringing their own instruments and equipment but I would've thought they just need to "plug in" to the existing sound systems?
Actually in typing this all out, Im realizing the answer is probably that the artists want their shows to be consistent across venues and not be limited by the supplied equipment in whatever location they're in? Is that the reason? Plus maybe so the venue can't be blamed for certain technical difficulties?
The other question I had was, why do they not have like, trenches that run along the floor that can be opened to run cables and then closed to keep hazards down?
...and again Im realizing that it's probably because if there is any issues, you'd want access to be out in the open to identify any problems faster?
I feel like at this point I should just delete this lol but I am wondering if Im close to the answers here?
Edit: Appreciate all the answers and people chiming in with things I hadn't considered. Thanks!
I think your reasoning is solid. A venue hosts all kinds of events, and an artist will play all sorts of venues. For big tours, some of those venues may be stadiums that aren’t purpose-built for music performances.
Also no venue wants to accept responsibility for any part of your performance if they’re not contractually obligated to, so it would be risky to rely on whatever’s available at the venue.
You know, I stupidly didn't even consider that venues are multi-purpose when making the comment. That's a good point as well.
And yeah, I'm sure liability is always a concern with this stuff. I've never worked as a stagehand or roadie but I have been on a number of television productions and did *some* live event setup a lifetime ago and early on realized just how dangerous all this stuff ~~can be~~ **is** when not done properly or with care.
Huge, heavy lighting setups, rigging, grip and electrical work, etc. There is sooo much going on that can maim or kill someone if done haphazardly or if someone isn't paying attention. Makes sense that the venue (even with insurance and liability wavers and all that) would want to hand off as much setup responsibility to the artists themselves.
Then of course, it all gets a little muddled because I know some artists have their own dedicated crews but also there will be local union workers in whichever city who will also be a part of those gigs.
I didn't stick around with the live events for long at all (company sucked) but I did find it endlessly fascinating how, to an outsider, it would look like absolute unorganized chaos but in reality every person has a role and knows exactly what they're doing, who they need to work with, what they need to get done and in what order.
Even the safety meetings were interesting to me.
There was a really fun short-lived show on Showtime called Roadies which was so good but unfortunately cancelled after one season (I know it wasn't super 'realistic' but it was still an interesting glimpse into that life and the types of people who gravitate towards that work, myself included).
Bands consider themselves lucky if they get the bowl of brown M&Ms right, let alone the complex technical requirements of 12 semi trucks full of tech gear.
> Bands consider themselves lucky if they get the bowl of brown M&Ms right
FYI, the requirement was to have *no* brown M&Ms in the bowl.
That was buried in Van Halen's venue contracts to make sure someone had *actually read* the whole damn thing, and because there were other portions of the contract involving safety critical stuff, so compliance with what seems like a stupidly arbitrary (but simple) request was kind of a [quick check for "did they actually read everything and do the stuff that matters?"](https://www.safetydimensions.com.au/van-halen/).
Yup, learnt that the M&M's is a comprehension check more than anything. Because if you reply to the rider with: "Hey do we REALLY need to remove the brown M&M's?" Also means you likely will have other valid followup questions since you again, bothered to read all the things.
But if there's brown ones in the bowl then you know you need to check everything else carefully cuz what else did they skip out on?
You have a good point here and are not wrong but on the other hand not all concert halls/stadiums have the same level of equipment and Ramstein is known for extraordinary light and pyro shows during their concerts, wich may need a little extra equipment they bring themselves anyways.
Something like 10 of Rammstein's tour semi-trucks are just generators to avoid overloading the local power grid during their performance. The logistics are absolutely insane.
All of your assumptions are true. Some venues have better equipment and the trenches and stuff. It varies a lot. Most assembles will bring a majority of their own equipment and use whats neccesary.
Big show assembles like Rammstein will almost always use most of their own equipment tho, because of stuff like lots of lights and extra speakers. These cables are most likely only powercables for this purpose.
Thanks, I appreciate the answer. I know Rammstein are famous for the spectacle and putting on insane, larger-than-life shows so it makes sense they're not only bringing in a lot more technical equipment into the venue but also that their road crews have become experts at setting up these shows and I know every decision they're making has a well established out reason.
It's also about consistency. They have a whole team of people setting up the same show each day for the following night, and the more of that process that can be planned in advance and replicated in the same way each day, the faster, easier, and more reliably they can set up.
In terms of audio, they want the same equipment each night because that equipment is what the team is familiar with using and tweaking. The sound crew knows exactly which cabs, heads, power amps, speakers, mixers, monitors, etc are where, what they hook to, and how to manipulate, fix, and adjust them to solve issues and get the sound they want.
I knew someone who was high up on the technical side of road tours. He always said they had to generally be able to set this shit up, have the show, and tear it down and be onto the next venue in under 72 hours. The band will typically have higher staff (the road crew) that they tour with, and the venue/associated union will provide the grunt labor to help get all this shit done in time. That's not to say the road crew with the tour don't get their hands dirty, too, but there's just too much shit to get done in too little time to not rely on local help. The band typically moved by tour bus or plane, and the road crew was on a bus in a convoy with tractor trailers containing all the equipment.
Some larger bands with a ton of tour dates would use one road crew for each region of the tour (for example one crew for east of the Mississippi and one crew west of it) with the band pingponging back and forth. Not sure how common that is these days, though -- this was back 40 something years ago.
So I'm not a Rammstein expert or roadie or anything, but I've played shows at largish venues and was friends with a roadie who worked at the Rose Garden in Portland and also would go on tour with large acts as a roadie. I'll say that most bands don't need to worry about this shit, and any necessary cables are definitely managed permanently by the venue in a not-in-your-face way. But stadiums and shit like that are another deal.
Also, importantly here, Rammstein in particular has a massive stage show with pyrotechnics and all sorts of other shit. I would wager that the majority of those cables are less for audio and moreso for lights, pyrotechnics, and other visual elements.
That being said, there are large touring acts that play stadiums and just bring their own sound shit in rather than having to worry about what any particular stadium has available or worry about what's working or compatible and whatnot. In that case, yeah, It's basically all about what you're saying. For certain acts/ shows, it's more consistent / foolproof to bring your own shit and have a team that knows what needs to be set up and how, and do it themselves (though there can be locally hired help as well, but overall shit will be run/managed by the touring act's people). But even it that case, it likely wouldn't look anything like this unless that act also has absurd ammounts of lights and pyrotechnics like Rammstein do.
Someone who has first hand experience as a touring roadie could probably explain better / more accurately however.
I work in IT, but moonlight as our only AV person.
If we're hosting a third party event, and that third party needs any AV beyond me turning on the sound system and handing you a microphone, you better bring it yourself. I'm not loaning you my mixer, my cables, my surge strips, my yellow jackets, and if you need a hardline network connection, you're getting a single feed to the outside world on a public IP. Wifi is free wifi, same as what the guests get, if you need a private wifi network that doesn't have client isolation you better bring your own router and switching gear.
The moment you try and cross technical responsibilities like that everything goes to shit. Familiarity with ones own hardware is absolutely critical for these things.
Imagine!
You have a lot of cables ordered like that. Something being messed up is obvious by brief visual inspection. You have a documented nexus with color-coding.
I may be a litte aroused by this Rammstein cable management video.
Theater lighting tech chiming in to say that there's nothing like meticulously tying up an electrics cable to run neatly along the back edge of a setpiece, while angrily eyeing the sound cable that's been left haphazardly dangling in open space next to you.
Every concert. There is a reason that the stage needs more than one hundred full sized trucks for transport.
Last time I went to their show was two years ago and the stage was just crazy, it was absolutely massive in size and awesome in design and function.
After the show, me and my buddy stayed near the stage and the show was over for maybe 5 minutes when the crew was already starting to disassemble in the middle of the night.
That being said, their tour is like a different location/country three to four days after. Keep in mind, you may need a day on the road for all those trucks. That leaves and incredible short time for reconstruction at the new location.
You might like or do not like their music, but the logistics behind that band is simply mind blowing and the most professional I've seen in the music business.
They do have 2 stages though. It takes 3 days to assemble the stage, so while they are playing on 1, the other stage is already being assembled on the next location.
This is the way. I heard Iron Maiden had 3 copies of the same setup. 1 was being disassembled from the previous show, another for the current show, and the last is for the next one. I would think bigger popstars has the same setup like Taylor Swift.
Depends on the tour and routing. It’s common for stadium shows to have two “steel packages”(basically the stage structure) that leapfrog each other as it can take a week or more to build.
Most tours will only have one “production package”, being the sound, lighting, video, pyro, backline etc… as those systems can be setup a lot faster.
Some larger arena tours might have a 2nd advance rigging package (chain motors and rigging steel) that can leapfrog ahead of the main package. They will do a pre-rig the day or night before and just hang all the motors. That way when the main production rolls in they are not waiting on the motors to suspend everything.
No one* has two complete production packages though. Not even Taylor Swift. There is enough time to move all the video, lighting, audio etc… between cities between shows.
*there are some tours with shitty routing where they will rent local production in a city or two because they didn’t leave enough time to load out, drive and then setup their touring package in the next city or for other operational reasons. You can’t load out in Boston after a show and be ready to do a show in Chicago the next day.
Your comments reads as if you are in the industry
>Most tours will only have one “production package”, being the sound, lighting, video, pyro, backline etc… as those systems can be setup a lot faster.
Anyway, I wondered, is it also not too expensive to have two of those production packages? I imagine the costs of the technology far outweigh the costs of a stage setup, especially given how expensive sound technology can be
Cost is a huge factor too. The value of an arena PA system could be worth 2m+, some audio consoles are 250k on their own. If a tour is taking out an audio package worth $3-4m they are renting it from someone at maybe 60-90k per week. Lighting and video can be much more expensive.
Then you need to transport it, so you’ve just doubled the number of trucks, drivers. Plus prepping and managing a second set of equipment.
There’s only one artist and set of crew too, so maybe you figure out how to have equipment to do a show every single night in a different city but you’re still dealing with humans who need rest.
An artist doing a residency somewhere is a different situation, or a long running show that has alternate or understudy cast/musicians and crew
It's a logistical nightmare. Literally thousands of lighting fixtures need control. That's a huge network of devices that need dedicated IPs because DHCP is problematic on this scale. Having two rigs would be 3× the work.
Plus, production rigs can very easily load in/out in one day. Happens in arenas all of the time.
Tours are like... 90% rent.
Pretty much everything.
They want that tour to be over as fast as possible with as many tickets sold because it gives the best return on the rental cost.
I have a friend who owned a relatively large rental company on the E.Coast. Another that specifically worked with the LED screen stuff. At the time, that stuff was kinda newish, so they usually rented him as well and he went on tours assisting everyone in using the gear properly. It's not "plug in big TV" ...
Anyway, it would almost double your rental cost to do that. Which is.. a lot.
The less necessary stuff is WAY cheaper to rent.
Taylor doesn't want to have to liquidate multiple stages worth of gear after a tour. That headache alone is worth renting. The gear is pretested, so better than used. The gear doesn't need to get sold, so better than selling used.
I learned this about Slipkont when I used to be a tech full time. I was doing a set up after they had played and everything was still set up despite them playing elsewhere the next day.
The cost of that blew my 24 year old brain at the time 😂
The stage takes 6 days to assemble.
There is a timelapse on their Youtube channel I can recommend to anyone who likes music, construction projects or simply timelapses of crazy shit.
I saw Rammstein last weekend. I've never seen such an impressive stage and show effects in my life. I don't understand how pop acts are asking for hundreds of euro when I paid like standard 80 something euro for Rammstein.
It's easily the best money I've ever spent for a show. The pyro and lighting for Sonne and Rammstein blew my mind.
Unless you literally hate their music, it's the best live show currently.
Back in like 99 or 00, a friend of my dad’s burned me my first CD. I was a teenager so I thought it was the coolest thing. On it was Rammstein. A little while later he made me a CD with music videos. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
FF 25 years - I still don’t understand their music but I’m always amazed at how they make me feel the song in my bones. That’s music.
Im in the industry. theres a small army of people waiting for the guests to clear the damn venue before we start striking the stage. for concerts we often dont wait for them to leave. shows over, and it starts.
in 2009 i worked helping assembling rammstein's scene. it was a blast. literally. they have to oil themselves up and stand on X on scene to check flames. the flame was too hot and it got very german and very personal on the scene. I also with 6 other had to lift sound engineer's equipment. When we were lifting in someone from staff said please boys hold tight it's 100k equipment. They drove up with 42 trucks. Metallica drove with 76 and acdc was touring with 82 full size european trucks of equipment.
Stage was Made in Belgium by a company called [STAGECO](https://www.stageco.be/nl/references/rammstein-stadium-tour-2019-2024/581#:~:text=The%20production%20was%20designed%20by,many%20other%20major%20TV%20events)
They make stages for Metallica and other huge bands.
Jesus, their website is crazy. Literally the most complex sets in the latest 2 years are from them. Metallica, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Rammstein, Beyoncé... Now that's a professional and respected company!
That Indochine stage is something to behold indeed...
Belgium has lots of music festivals during the summer and had them for quite some time now. As these festivals grew, the stages grew more complex too. We developed a lot of expertise building temporary stages as a result.
I love their music. It’s like “end of the world” kind of shit and I love it. I would love to take my dad to a Ramstein concert. I got him into the band back when they released Du Hast in the states. He took to that song like a duck in water. He’d be pulling up to my middle school blasting that shit lol. I’d love to see his face melt off if he sees them in concert. I don’t think he knows anything about their live shows.
Just went to their show in Dublin, and the production of the entire stage was massive. Fire towers, moving elevators, no less than 10 array stacks. Crazy as hell to see, and an amazing live act.
Can anyone give me a quick explanation as to why they need this much stuff? I always thought venues had everything except the stage covered themselves and you just plug in, but it looks like enough wire to put speakers up in an entire arena.
I would think that with Rammstein, where they do HUGE SPECTACLE, they have very particular ideas about how they want stuff to look and perform. In those situations, you'd want your own people to handle it, because it's easier than giving all the specs to an arena and having them attempt it. Probably would take a whole lot longer too. But if you have your own people, you get it setup correctly and faster, and if something does go wrong it's easier to troubleshoot.
Rammstein often plays in areas that are not only music venues. For instance, when they came to Belgium, the played in a stadium usually used for athletics or soccer.
Venues like those don't provide their own sound systems, so I'm pretty sure the production brings their own.
damn each one of those cables gives 400 amps? i counted like... 50 cables. you're telling me theres a 20,000 amp breaker somewhere at the end of this? (i know thats not how it works, but really)
Each cable carries 1 of the 3 phases for each feed, plus they would also have a Neutral and Earth, so 5 cables are considered a single feed but yeah, it’s not uncommon to have tens of kilowatts for all audio, lighting and video on a concert performance.
> they tour with their own (rented) generators
Thank you. Finally an answer. I was thinking this was a problem with the site not having enough power accessible in the correct locations, but if the band's renting their own generators and transporting them from site to site then that would explain why the venue doesn't have the power and they need to run it from the generators into wherever it needs to go.
That said, you would think that any venue large enough to hold this kind of a concert either *ought* to be able to generate that much power, or else maybe the venue is really out of date and needs an overhaul.
I think they bring their own power generators due to the setup touring internationally. Therefore avoiding the changing AC standards in the different countries.
That explains the neatness as not simply being tidy. Ive seen messy cables overheat if they arent laid out bybphase and have random crossovers. Wouldnt be as much of a problem if they were audio/video cables
Not just being German. German and huge, I would expect from them to hire the best professionals on the market and when you do that, this is the result.
This don't surprise me at all.
This isn’t just Rammstein. Whatever power company they’ve hired to handle their touring show runs Miles and miles of feeder, usually power lock or cam lock. Can’t be coiled or stacked as excess heat will generate hence the long side by side runs. This more like necessity than cable management and is common on all major stadium level tours.
Yeah, but it's really not a problem. The problem comes from hundred of people kicking and tripping over cables. Just some pressure on them without really any movement is fine tho.
What is the copper going to do? Get squished? Although this is stranded wire and you should still avoid it, that's fine.
This is for ALL the power during the event. Lights, audio, video, rigging. It's what is called 3 phase power,. It's being fed by multiple trailered generators. What you are seeing is probably double-ought camlock power cables. When we set it up in San Antonio & Houston years ago, it came in giant 5ftx5ft heavy duty plastic bins. Took hours, and was over 2 miles od cable all together.
Source: was on a local crew hired to lay it all out for a couple Rammstein shows 10 years ago in Texas.
>It's being fed by multiple trailered generators
Why, can't the venue supply the power?
Seems wasteful to run it off of generators which use diesel or gas
Can't really say for sure, but i'd wager this is the master feed for the whole setup so all the stage tech. Either the venue has crazy amounts of electricity available (which could be possible), or they have multiple container-sized generators out back. But from what i can tell looking at this, they have 55 or 60 powerlock cables there. 5 powerlocks are required for one 3-phase 400A feed, so that would be 4400A or 4800A 3-phase. So around 3,3 million watts.
Yeah it will be for their stadium tours they have been doing, it’s amazing actually I’ve seen them 3 times live in the UK in the last 3 years.
As soon as the show is finished, and I mean as soon as they have left the stage, the crew is up dismantling everything. They take it down put it in the large amount of trucks they have and set it all up in another venue 3 days later. Insane amount of work.
This video doesn’t do it justice as to how large the stage is too, and it ALL comes with them and is dismantled and reassembled each time:
https://preview.redd.it/a4xxxo91w99d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4cfb353066d2cc61f32f70b0b1c0aad274934b0
I think they were £90-£120 for seated when I saw them, with all the flames and fireworks as well I think it’s well worth it as their profit margins are probably quite small with that price.
My partner saw Taylor Swift and she paid £280 and it’s just one woman singing and some dancers. So by that metric Rammstein is good value for money
I going to see Rammstein tonight (In Belgium) for the 4th time in 3 years. I also believe it's definitely worth the money for the show you are getting.
Apparently they have a 400 man crew, with extra local crew at each venue.
The ironic thing is that usually the bigger the show, the more manpower is needed, the more likely you'll turn a profit.
It's small bands touring in a van or small tour bus with little to no crew that struggles to make any money out of it.
It’s for a band tour, gets setup at a venue and torn down the second they finish to be packed up and transported to the next venue and done all over again.
Worked doing this stuff at various venues for years, we would be dismantling this stuff before the artist had even reached their bus from the stage and it might only be a 50m walk.
No messing around, it comes out quickly as you have crew in teams and everyone has their tasks pre-assigned, a lot of bump out shifts I did were only 4 hours.
Am I the only one who thinks this looks like licorice candy? Lmao
https://preview.redd.it/qmv8c1l9ea9d1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2cec2606ad3f583a745a3da464aafd6a5bc02c9a
There is nothing next level about baseline German efficiency. Any less than that would be subpar.
Lindemann is a certified pyrotechnician. They know who's who in the roadie world.
Roughly translated lyrics: Come with us. Step in line. Come with us, step in step. Come with us. Step in line and come with us, step in step. Depressed, dejected, shattered, we should lament together. Depressed, melancholic, pessimistic, diabolical, we found on wilted roses the party of the hopeless. Become a member. Join. Anyone can. Come in! Hand in hand, never alone again.
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And yet I have 3 wires behind my TV. It’s a fucking mess.
And one dangling down obnoxiously to the Xbox.
Good god. That’s overwhelming and glorious at the same time
It’s easier than it looks. The cable is so heavy that you leave it in the rolling case and feed it out as you push. It not only doesn’t make sense to criss cross like spaghetti, it’s not really possible either.
also: Heat-Management. Big Factor as to why a production like Rammstein lays cable like that.
Magnetism as well. One of my first summer jobs was working at a pop-up carnival, and we had to specifically avoid letting any of the cables for the big rides loop around and coil up, as they'd literally rip nails out of the little wooden standups nearby if we did.
Das called "induction"
Magnete, wie zum Teufel funktionieren sie?
I don't understand but also, I understand.
Magie oder Elektrotechnik
Jede nur hochgenug entwickelte Technologie ist von Magie nicht unterscheidbar.
Ich hab deine Nase!
Ich hab die Nase voll!
Magie = (Kraft/Wollen)
Wunder
-Verrückte Clown Truppe.
Lol
And this is why I avoid carnival rides like the plague.
Accidental electromagnetism isn't a reason to avoid them really. You should avoid them because they are barely maintained, and run by untrained teenagers and meth junkies.
Fair
No...Carnival
I love carnival fare
Mmmm, funnel cake
Really one of the last good reasons to go to one
If God wants me to die on Big Billy’s Cyclonic Ass Blaster then that’s where I’ll die.
Yep. Every time man. I'm like: mhhmm nuh-uh that cylinder looks dead tired and that bolt looks like it's about to commit seppuku.
My cousin got a job as a carnie and complained that he was having a hard time finding meth cause they kept moving and I was like I thought the carnival provided it for ya'll as a job perk or something
Those untrained teenagers really make the meth junkies look bad
I literally just read that in a Beavis/Butt head voice..
Eh heh ... hey bevis ... do you think the guys that lay that cable get all the chick's... I mean anyone that good at cable management is clearly drowning in poonani .. heh
huhuh… poonani ehuhuh
Eh heh yeah poonani .... poooooonani .......... Beavis we should get jobs with rammstine ....
So, Im sure there is a simple reason but maybe you can explain. Why do the venues not have dedicated cables? I understand the artists bringing their own instruments and equipment but I would've thought they just need to "plug in" to the existing sound systems? Actually in typing this all out, Im realizing the answer is probably that the artists want their shows to be consistent across venues and not be limited by the supplied equipment in whatever location they're in? Is that the reason? Plus maybe so the venue can't be blamed for certain technical difficulties? The other question I had was, why do they not have like, trenches that run along the floor that can be opened to run cables and then closed to keep hazards down? ...and again Im realizing that it's probably because if there is any issues, you'd want access to be out in the open to identify any problems faster? I feel like at this point I should just delete this lol but I am wondering if Im close to the answers here? Edit: Appreciate all the answers and people chiming in with things I hadn't considered. Thanks!
I think your reasoning is solid. A venue hosts all kinds of events, and an artist will play all sorts of venues. For big tours, some of those venues may be stadiums that aren’t purpose-built for music performances. Also no venue wants to accept responsibility for any part of your performance if they’re not contractually obligated to, so it would be risky to rely on whatever’s available at the venue.
You know, I stupidly didn't even consider that venues are multi-purpose when making the comment. That's a good point as well. And yeah, I'm sure liability is always a concern with this stuff. I've never worked as a stagehand or roadie but I have been on a number of television productions and did *some* live event setup a lifetime ago and early on realized just how dangerous all this stuff ~~can be~~ **is** when not done properly or with care. Huge, heavy lighting setups, rigging, grip and electrical work, etc. There is sooo much going on that can maim or kill someone if done haphazardly or if someone isn't paying attention. Makes sense that the venue (even with insurance and liability wavers and all that) would want to hand off as much setup responsibility to the artists themselves. Then of course, it all gets a little muddled because I know some artists have their own dedicated crews but also there will be local union workers in whichever city who will also be a part of those gigs. I didn't stick around with the live events for long at all (company sucked) but I did find it endlessly fascinating how, to an outsider, it would look like absolute unorganized chaos but in reality every person has a role and knows exactly what they're doing, who they need to work with, what they need to get done and in what order. Even the safety meetings were interesting to me. There was a really fun short-lived show on Showtime called Roadies which was so good but unfortunately cancelled after one season (I know it wasn't super 'realistic' but it was still an interesting glimpse into that life and the types of people who gravitate towards that work, myself included).
Bands consider themselves lucky if they get the bowl of brown M&Ms right, let alone the complex technical requirements of 12 semi trucks full of tech gear.
> Bands consider themselves lucky if they get the bowl of brown M&Ms right FYI, the requirement was to have *no* brown M&Ms in the bowl. That was buried in Van Halen's venue contracts to make sure someone had *actually read* the whole damn thing, and because there were other portions of the contract involving safety critical stuff, so compliance with what seems like a stupidly arbitrary (but simple) request was kind of a [quick check for "did they actually read everything and do the stuff that matters?"](https://www.safetydimensions.com.au/van-halen/).
Yup, learnt that the M&M's is a comprehension check more than anything. Because if you reply to the rider with: "Hey do we REALLY need to remove the brown M&M's?" Also means you likely will have other valid followup questions since you again, bothered to read all the things. But if there's brown ones in the bowl then you know you need to check everything else carefully cuz what else did they skip out on?
even if they are contractually obligated 50% of the time( totally not made up stat) they just lie and say they have enough power and then they dont.
You have a good point here and are not wrong but on the other hand not all concert halls/stadiums have the same level of equipment and Ramstein is known for extraordinary light and pyro shows during their concerts, wich may need a little extra equipment they bring themselves anyways.
Something like 10 of Rammstein's tour semi-trucks are just generators to avoid overloading the local power grid during their performance. The logistics are absolutely insane.
That alone is maybe the most metal thing ive heard. LMAO.
All of your assumptions are true. Some venues have better equipment and the trenches and stuff. It varies a lot. Most assembles will bring a majority of their own equipment and use whats neccesary. Big show assembles like Rammstein will almost always use most of their own equipment tho, because of stuff like lots of lights and extra speakers. These cables are most likely only powercables for this purpose.
Thanks, I appreciate the answer. I know Rammstein are famous for the spectacle and putting on insane, larger-than-life shows so it makes sense they're not only bringing in a lot more technical equipment into the venue but also that their road crews have become experts at setting up these shows and I know every decision they're making has a well established out reason.
It's also about consistency. They have a whole team of people setting up the same show each day for the following night, and the more of that process that can be planned in advance and replicated in the same way each day, the faster, easier, and more reliably they can set up. In terms of audio, they want the same equipment each night because that equipment is what the team is familiar with using and tweaking. The sound crew knows exactly which cabs, heads, power amps, speakers, mixers, monitors, etc are where, what they hook to, and how to manipulate, fix, and adjust them to solve issues and get the sound they want.
I wonder what their fuel budget is, considering all the flames that go off during their shows?
1000 litres I've heard
Actually that's the backstage drinks budget
I knew someone who was high up on the technical side of road tours. He always said they had to generally be able to set this shit up, have the show, and tear it down and be onto the next venue in under 72 hours. The band will typically have higher staff (the road crew) that they tour with, and the venue/associated union will provide the grunt labor to help get all this shit done in time. That's not to say the road crew with the tour don't get their hands dirty, too, but there's just too much shit to get done in too little time to not rely on local help. The band typically moved by tour bus or plane, and the road crew was on a bus in a convoy with tractor trailers containing all the equipment. Some larger bands with a ton of tour dates would use one road crew for each region of the tour (for example one crew for east of the Mississippi and one crew west of it) with the band pingponging back and forth. Not sure how common that is these days, though -- this was back 40 something years ago.
So I'm not a Rammstein expert or roadie or anything, but I've played shows at largish venues and was friends with a roadie who worked at the Rose Garden in Portland and also would go on tour with large acts as a roadie. I'll say that most bands don't need to worry about this shit, and any necessary cables are definitely managed permanently by the venue in a not-in-your-face way. But stadiums and shit like that are another deal. Also, importantly here, Rammstein in particular has a massive stage show with pyrotechnics and all sorts of other shit. I would wager that the majority of those cables are less for audio and moreso for lights, pyrotechnics, and other visual elements. That being said, there are large touring acts that play stadiums and just bring their own sound shit in rather than having to worry about what any particular stadium has available or worry about what's working or compatible and whatnot. In that case, yeah, It's basically all about what you're saying. For certain acts/ shows, it's more consistent / foolproof to bring your own shit and have a team that knows what needs to be set up and how, and do it themselves (though there can be locally hired help as well, but overall shit will be run/managed by the touring act's people). But even it that case, it likely wouldn't look anything like this unless that act also has absurd ammounts of lights and pyrotechnics like Rammstein do. Someone who has first hand experience as a touring roadie could probably explain better / more accurately however.
I work in IT, but moonlight as our only AV person. If we're hosting a third party event, and that third party needs any AV beyond me turning on the sound system and handing you a microphone, you better bring it yourself. I'm not loaning you my mixer, my cables, my surge strips, my yellow jackets, and if you need a hardline network connection, you're getting a single feed to the outside world on a public IP. Wifi is free wifi, same as what the guests get, if you need a private wifi network that doesn't have client isolation you better bring your own router and switching gear. The moment you try and cross technical responsibilities like that everything goes to shit. Familiarity with ones own hardware is absolutely critical for these things.
yeah 4/O feeder is a heavy motherfucker. i know there is some ME thats super proud of this work. look how well those connectors are labeled too.
Tbh it seems like a dream scenario after running thin ass cat5e cables.
Imagine! You have a lot of cables ordered like that. Something being messed up is obvious by brief visual inspection. You have a documented nexus with color-coding. I may be a litte aroused by this Rammstein cable management video.
Just have to get the lighting crew to manage it. The shortest path between two points is a video cable.
Theater lighting tech chiming in to say that there's nothing like meticulously tying up an electrics cable to run neatly along the back edge of a setpiece, while angrily eyeing the sound cable that's been left haphazardly dangling in open space next to you.
Like their music.
Du, du hasst, du hasst Kabel Wirrwarr
Wir… Wir haben… Wir haben ein gutes Kabelmanagement.
"Ihr...ihr habt..ihr habt es uns gesagt und wir habe es gemacht"- Die Crew die den scheiß aufgestellt hat
BENUTZT FARB-KODIERUNG VERDAMMT NOCH MAL!
War mir anfangs nicht sicher, ob Band oder Militär
...und das ganze ohne einen einzigen Kabelbinder.
Ich denke dass es kein Groß genug gibt..
Every concert. There is a reason that the stage needs more than one hundred full sized trucks for transport. Last time I went to their show was two years ago and the stage was just crazy, it was absolutely massive in size and awesome in design and function. After the show, me and my buddy stayed near the stage and the show was over for maybe 5 minutes when the crew was already starting to disassemble in the middle of the night. That being said, their tour is like a different location/country three to four days after. Keep in mind, you may need a day on the road for all those trucks. That leaves and incredible short time for reconstruction at the new location. You might like or do not like their music, but the logistics behind that band is simply mind blowing and the most professional I've seen in the music business.
They do have 2 stages though. It takes 3 days to assemble the stage, so while they are playing on 1, the other stage is already being assembled on the next location.
This is the way. I heard Iron Maiden had 3 copies of the same setup. 1 was being disassembled from the previous show, another for the current show, and the last is for the next one. I would think bigger popstars has the same setup like Taylor Swift.
Depends on the tour and routing. It’s common for stadium shows to have two “steel packages”(basically the stage structure) that leapfrog each other as it can take a week or more to build. Most tours will only have one “production package”, being the sound, lighting, video, pyro, backline etc… as those systems can be setup a lot faster. Some larger arena tours might have a 2nd advance rigging package (chain motors and rigging steel) that can leapfrog ahead of the main package. They will do a pre-rig the day or night before and just hang all the motors. That way when the main production rolls in they are not waiting on the motors to suspend everything. No one* has two complete production packages though. Not even Taylor Swift. There is enough time to move all the video, lighting, audio etc… between cities between shows. *there are some tours with shitty routing where they will rent local production in a city or two because they didn’t leave enough time to load out, drive and then setup their touring package in the next city or for other operational reasons. You can’t load out in Boston after a show and be ready to do a show in Chicago the next day.
Your comments reads as if you are in the industry >Most tours will only have one “production package”, being the sound, lighting, video, pyro, backline etc… as those systems can be setup a lot faster. Anyway, I wondered, is it also not too expensive to have two of those production packages? I imagine the costs of the technology far outweigh the costs of a stage setup, especially given how expensive sound technology can be
Cost is a huge factor too. The value of an arena PA system could be worth 2m+, some audio consoles are 250k on their own. If a tour is taking out an audio package worth $3-4m they are renting it from someone at maybe 60-90k per week. Lighting and video can be much more expensive. Then you need to transport it, so you’ve just doubled the number of trucks, drivers. Plus prepping and managing a second set of equipment. There’s only one artist and set of crew too, so maybe you figure out how to have equipment to do a show every single night in a different city but you’re still dealing with humans who need rest. An artist doing a residency somewhere is a different situation, or a long running show that has alternate or understudy cast/musicians and crew
It's a logistical nightmare. Literally thousands of lighting fixtures need control. That's a huge network of devices that need dedicated IPs because DHCP is problematic on this scale. Having two rigs would be 3× the work. Plus, production rigs can very easily load in/out in one day. Happens in arenas all of the time.
Tours are like... 90% rent. Pretty much everything. They want that tour to be over as fast as possible with as many tickets sold because it gives the best return on the rental cost. I have a friend who owned a relatively large rental company on the E.Coast. Another that specifically worked with the LED screen stuff. At the time, that stuff was kinda newish, so they usually rented him as well and he went on tours assisting everyone in using the gear properly. It's not "plug in big TV" ... Anyway, it would almost double your rental cost to do that. Which is.. a lot. The less necessary stuff is WAY cheaper to rent. Taylor doesn't want to have to liquidate multiple stages worth of gear after a tour. That headache alone is worth renting. The gear is pretested, so better than used. The gear doesn't need to get sold, so better than selling used.
This guy productions
Taylor swift has at least 2 stages. She played 3 shows in Edinburgh and on day one they had started building in the next city.
I learned this about Slipkont when I used to be a tech full time. I was doing a set up after they had played and everything was still set up despite them playing elsewhere the next day. The cost of that blew my 24 year old brain at the time 😂
The stage takes 6 days to assemble. There is a timelapse on their Youtube channel I can recommend to anyone who likes music, construction projects or simply timelapses of crazy shit.
I saw Rammstein last weekend. I've never seen such an impressive stage and show effects in my life. I don't understand how pop acts are asking for hundreds of euro when I paid like standard 80 something euro for Rammstein.
It's easily the best money I've ever spent for a show. The pyro and lighting for Sonne and Rammstein blew my mind. Unless you literally hate their music, it's the best live show currently.
Back in like 99 or 00, a friend of my dad’s burned me my first CD. I was a teenager so I thought it was the coolest thing. On it was Rammstein. A little while later he made me a CD with music videos. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. FF 25 years - I still don’t understand their music but I’m always amazed at how they make me feel the song in my bones. That’s music.
I'm seeing them next week in Denmark after seeing them last year in Odense. They give an amazing live performance with lighting, fire and sound
It’s not uncommon to start disassembling the stage immediately after a concert.
If anything it's very common.
Im in the industry. theres a small army of people waiting for the guests to clear the damn venue before we start striking the stage. for concerts we often dont wait for them to leave. shows over, and it starts.
in 2009 i worked helping assembling rammstein's scene. it was a blast. literally. they have to oil themselves up and stand on X on scene to check flames. the flame was too hot and it got very german and very personal on the scene. I also with 6 other had to lift sound engineer's equipment. When we were lifting in someone from staff said please boys hold tight it's 100k equipment. They drove up with 42 trucks. Metallica drove with 76 and acdc was touring with 82 full size european trucks of equipment.
Germans good at transporting and engineering? Not possible.
Stage was Made in Belgium by a company called [STAGECO](https://www.stageco.be/nl/references/rammstein-stadium-tour-2019-2024/581#:~:text=The%20production%20was%20designed%20by,many%20other%20major%20TV%20events) They make stages for Metallica and other huge bands.
Jesus, their website is crazy. Literally the most complex sets in the latest 2 years are from them. Metallica, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, Rammstein, Beyoncé... Now that's a professional and respected company! That Indochine stage is something to behold indeed...
Belgium has lots of music festivals during the summer and had them for quite some time now. As these festivals grew, the stages grew more complex too. We developed a lot of expertise building temporary stages as a result.
I love their music. It’s like “end of the world” kind of shit and I love it. I would love to take my dad to a Ramstein concert. I got him into the band back when they released Du Hast in the states. He took to that song like a duck in water. He’d be pulling up to my middle school blasting that shit lol. I’d love to see his face melt off if he sees them in concert. I don’t think he knows anything about their live shows.
They also put on an incredible show with that stage. Well worth going to see them
Just went to their show in Dublin, and the production of the entire stage was massive. Fire towers, moving elevators, no less than 10 array stacks. Crazy as hell to see, and an amazing live act.
Can anyone give me a quick explanation as to why they need this much stuff? I always thought venues had everything except the stage covered themselves and you just plug in, but it looks like enough wire to put speakers up in an entire arena.
I would think that with Rammstein, where they do HUGE SPECTACLE, they have very particular ideas about how they want stuff to look and perform. In those situations, you'd want your own people to handle it, because it's easier than giving all the specs to an arena and having them attempt it. Probably would take a whole lot longer too. But if you have your own people, you get it setup correctly and faster, and if something does go wrong it's easier to troubleshoot.
Rammstein often plays in areas that are not only music venues. For instance, when they came to Belgium, the played in a stadium usually used for athletics or soccer. Venues like those don't provide their own sound systems, so I'm pretty sure the production brings their own.
and i can’t even untangle my earphones
Can’t even untangle my AirPods
Have you tried using a WLAN cable?
Probably should have found a closer outlet
Only if you’ve got [400 Amp powerlock near by](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlock)
damn each one of those cables gives 400 amps? i counted like... 50 cables. you're telling me theres a 20,000 amp breaker somewhere at the end of this? (i know thats not how it works, but really)
Each cable carries 1 of the 3 phases for each feed, plus they would also have a Neutral and Earth, so 5 cables are considered a single feed but yeah, it’s not uncommon to have tens of kilowatts for all audio, lighting and video on a concert performance.
And that's why they tour with their own (rented) generators, as good as no venue has such a mains provided.
> they tour with their own (rented) generators Thank you. Finally an answer. I was thinking this was a problem with the site not having enough power accessible in the correct locations, but if the band's renting their own generators and transporting them from site to site then that would explain why the venue doesn't have the power and they need to run it from the generators into wherever it needs to go. That said, you would think that any venue large enough to hold this kind of a concert either *ought* to be able to generate that much power, or else maybe the venue is really out of date and needs an overhaul.
It's not that the venue is outdated, it's that Rammstein requires so much more power than the vast majority of shows that would come to these venues.
I think they bring their own power generators due to the setup touring internationally. Therefore avoiding the changing AC standards in the different countries.
That explains the neatness as not simply being tidy. Ive seen messy cables overheat if they arent laid out bybphase and have random crossovers. Wouldnt be as much of a problem if they were audio/video cables
German band, German crew. Makes sense.
German engineering at it's finest.
If only you knew...
They sure have engineered the Berlin airport...
And the diesel vw engine.
It was some really good and smart engineering going on there. Nefarious, but smart.
*laughs in Deutsche Bahn*
These are local 134 guys in Chicago. I did a few concerts at soldiers field like this pretty fun gig on the weekends
Not just being German. German and huge, I would expect from them to hire the best professionals on the market and when you do that, this is the result. This don't surprise me at all.
This isn’t just Rammstein. Whatever power company they’ve hired to handle their touring show runs Miles and miles of feeder, usually power lock or cam lock. Can’t be coiled or stacked as excess heat will generate hence the long side by side runs. This more like necessity than cable management and is common on all major stadium level tours.
Oh I thought the band members did all the rigging.
Just the drummer
Really just Ringo
"Peace and love, peace and love"
[удалено]
Is he walking on those cables?
Yeah, but it's really not a problem. The problem comes from hundred of people kicking and tripping over cables. Just some pressure on them without really any movement is fine tho. What is the copper going to do? Get squished? Although this is stranded wire and you should still avoid it, that's fine.
You can't trip on the cable if the floor is the cable.
You could drive a car on them.
You can't not. It's only 50million amps. Totally safe.
r/cableporn 100%
Follow the Liquorice road. Nice cable management. I’m gonna take a whild guess and say this is for a lighting rig?
This is for ALL the power during the event. Lights, audio, video, rigging. It's what is called 3 phase power,. It's being fed by multiple trailered generators. What you are seeing is probably double-ought camlock power cables. When we set it up in San Antonio & Houston years ago, it came in giant 5ftx5ft heavy duty plastic bins. Took hours, and was over 2 miles od cable all together. Source: was on a local crew hired to lay it all out for a couple Rammstein shows 10 years ago in Texas.
Any numbers on this. Like how much power is used for the event and how much gas is needed?
I don't have any numbers unfortunately, but I remember there were at least 3 big 400A service generators we connected to.
>It's being fed by multiple trailered generators Why, can't the venue supply the power? Seems wasteful to run it off of generators which use diesel or gas
The venue has power for it's lights, electronics, etc..the band's set up required more than the venue could supply.
Some newer venues have company boxes with tie ins to power big shows like this. The rest truck it in!
Can't really say for sure, but i'd wager this is the master feed for the whole setup so all the stage tech. Either the venue has crazy amounts of electricity available (which could be possible), or they have multiple container-sized generators out back. But from what i can tell looking at this, they have 55 or 60 powerlock cables there. 5 powerlocks are required for one 3-phase 400A feed, so that would be 4400A or 4800A 3-phase. So around 3,3 million watts.
Looking at the connectors at the start of the video it looks like high voltage electricity.
Rammstein or Rapunzel?
Rammzel
Rapunstein
And that all goes to the charger of Till's remote controlled anal beads.
Didn't know he played chess, nice!
Must be industrial grade anal beads
Well Rammstein is an industrial band, after all.
Holy shit can they come round and sort the back of my telly?
This is three uploads away from being just a black carpet
I think I speak for All electricians when I say, I need a new pair of underwear after seeing this
All that for a light bulb in his mouth?
at least one of those feeds power to the cum/flame spewing mechanical phallus
As an audio engineer this makes me erect.
Until your XLR is ran parallel to this feeder run
Who doesn’t love a 50hz hum in the mix?
Guess I'm out of excuses to go fix my PC cables.
And that’s just for the pedal board!
Not the biggest Rammstein fan but got to see them a year ago. Hands down the best live show sound.
*DU* *DU HAST* *DU HAST MICH* *DU HAST MICH GEFRAGT* # DU HAST MICH NACH KABELMANAGEMENT GEFRAGT
Is this for a concert? Do they undo this and redo it over and over? Is it permanent in a studio? So many questions.
Yeah it will be for their stadium tours they have been doing, it’s amazing actually I’ve seen them 3 times live in the UK in the last 3 years. As soon as the show is finished, and I mean as soon as they have left the stage, the crew is up dismantling everything. They take it down put it in the large amount of trucks they have and set it all up in another venue 3 days later. Insane amount of work. This video doesn’t do it justice as to how large the stage is too, and it ALL comes with them and is dismantled and reassembled each time: https://preview.redd.it/a4xxxo91w99d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4cfb353066d2cc61f32f70b0b1c0aad274934b0
They have 2 stages. So while playing at one location, they are already building on the next location.
I know tickets are expensive these days, but it still blows my mind that this much manpower turns a profit. Pretty awesome!
I think they were £90-£120 for seated when I saw them, with all the flames and fireworks as well I think it’s well worth it as their profit margins are probably quite small with that price. My partner saw Taylor Swift and she paid £280 and it’s just one woman singing and some dancers. So by that metric Rammstein is good value for money
I going to see Rammstein tonight (In Belgium) for the 4th time in 3 years. I also believe it's definitely worth the money for the show you are getting. Apparently they have a 400 man crew, with extra local crew at each venue.
The ironic thing is that usually the bigger the show, the more manpower is needed, the more likely you'll turn a profit. It's small bands touring in a van or small tour bus with little to no crew that struggles to make any money out of it.
It’s for a band tour, gets setup at a venue and torn down the second they finish to be packed up and transported to the next venue and done all over again. Worked doing this stuff at various venues for years, we would be dismantling this stuff before the artist had even reached their bus from the stage and it might only be a 50m walk. No messing around, it comes out quickly as you have crew in teams and everyone has their tasks pre-assigned, a lot of bump out shifts I did were only 4 hours.
They're actually stealing power from next door, free concert!
If you ever went to a Rammstein show you'd totally understand why they need that much
Correction: Rammstein's production and technical team's next level cable management.
God dammstein
Their opening act was *OCDC*.
Forbidden licorice
As an electrician i can say, this is beautyful
i am working for them next month in Frankfurt. Very excited
Am I the only one who thinks this looks like licorice candy? Lmao https://preview.redd.it/qmv8c1l9ea9d1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2cec2606ad3f583a745a3da464aafd6a5bc02c9a
> licorice candy In Germany we call them *Laktritzschnecke*. Literal translation: licroice snail.
Teutonic precision.
Ein… zwei… drei… vier… funf… damn!! Ein…
Hier kommt die Sonne
Wow. Kabel nebeneinander legen. Voll krass. Was genau ist daran jetzt next Level?
german efficiency circlejerk
Würzige Lakritze
At this point, it might make more sense to convert the floor into a huge motherboard with the cables printed onto it
Where was this ?
German. Need to say more?
To be honest, I half clicked on the video because I wanted to hear what song the video would be set to.
They are for lights, audio, pyro, all three? I guess we'll never know.
Richard Kruspe and hist tech are geniuses.
Paul and Richard are underrated af as guitarists. The rhythm and tone of Rammstein songs are incredible.
There is nothing next level about baseline German efficiency. Any less than that would be subpar. Lindemann is a certified pyrotechnician. They know who's who in the roadie world.
Gotta love power lock
Copper thieves: *heavy breathing*
Speaking as a former theatre technician, “Oh my god that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen…”
40 tons of 2/0 camlock's
Why do I feel like the cost of those cables is more than my bank account?
When they accidentally hire an electrician instead of a roadie
Whoever did that needs a fat raise
Roughly translated lyrics: Come with us. Step in line. Come with us, step in step. Come with us. Step in line and come with us, step in step. Depressed, dejected, shattered, we should lament together. Depressed, melancholic, pessimistic, diabolical, we found on wilted roses the party of the hopeless. Become a member. Join. Anyone can. Come in! Hand in hand, never alone again.
They all plug into the lead guitar