One small mistake

Hey, Nikki here.

Last year's episode with Brandon "Fitz" Fitzgerald on rigging turned into one of the most-DM'd conversations we've put out. So we brought him back. 

One year later, Fitz has worked on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, Post Malone's world tour, and Playboi Carti — plus a setup in New Orleans during the city's biggest snowstorm in 55 years.

I love how Fitz talks about the details of the job. The meticulous care that it takes to be in rigging. The cost of jumping from camp to camp without a real break. The pressure of being responsible for 100,000 pounds in the air…

Why this one matters:

Rigging carries a kind of pressure most departments don't. The math is unforgiving, the legal liability is real, and one small lapse can become someone's worst day. 

Fitz is clear about that. He's also clear that the people who do this well aren't reckless adrenaline guys — they're math nerds with a checklist, a mentor list, and a healthy respect for what gravity does when you stop paying attention.

He was quick to point out that most of what made him good came from other people. He named more mentors in 30 seconds than most of us name in a career.

#1 The job is to say no, and mean it

Riggers are usually the bad guys. They're the ones telling production no, that can't hang there, that won't work, we have to re-engineer. It's not a personality trait. It's the job. 

Takeaway: The people protecting the show are often the ones least thanked for it.

Try this: The next time someone in a safety role pushes back on a plan, treat the friction as information, not an obstacle.

#2 Memorize your rig

Fitz watched his crew chief answer rigging questions without looking at a piece of paper. He had the show memorized. After that tour, Fitz did the same thing. 

When something shifts mid-day, and you can't get to the plot, knowing your show in your head is the difference between solving the problem in 30 seconds and stalling the whole call.

Takeaway: Knowing your job by heart is the unglamorous version of being good at it.

Try this: Pick one piece of your work this week — a rig, a setlist, a routing, a venue map — and learn it well enough that you don't need the document open.

#3 Camp-to-camp has a cost

Fitz was honest about something most touring crew feel and rarely name: the mental upheaval of being ripped out of one ecosystem and dropped into another. 

New bosses. New personalities. New expectations. There's no time to grieve the old camp before you're learning the new one.

Takeaway: Adjustment is part of the job, but pretending it's free has a cost.

Try this: Before your next camp change, give yourself one quiet day — even half a day — to actually close out the last one before you walk into the next.

If you want the full conversation, listen to Episode #59 of The Giggs Podcast with Fitz.
SPOTIFY | APPLE | YOUTUBE 

— Nikki

P.S. One line I loved: Fitz said the magic of the show is that the artist gets on stage and everything works, and the audience never knew his team was stressed out crying in the corner 20 minutes before. The cleaner the show looks, the harder somebody worked to make it look that way.