When crew gets the spotlight
Hey, Nikki here.
A couple weeks ago I was backstage at The Pinnacle in Nashville for the 20th annual CMA Touring Awards. Mic in hand, 28 conversations over the course of the night. Bus drivers, monitor engineers, photographers, business managers, pyro technicians, and many other unsung heroes.
Twenty years of this event. Twenty years of the touring community stopping long enough to put the spotlight on the people who are usually standing just outside of it.
Why this one matters:
These awards are peer-nominated and peer-voted. The person handing you that trophy isn’t a fan or a label exec. It’s someone doing very similar work who knows exactly what your day costs.
Tiffany Kerns, SVP of Industry Relations at CMA, said what she wants people to walk away feeling: “I want people to walk taller.” That sentence is the whole night.
#1 Being seen by your peers hits differently
Caleb Garrett has been with Luke Bryan for 17 years. He moved to Nashville in 2005 with everything he owned, a guitar signed by Dwight Yoakam he still can’t play, and nobody’s phone number. He was nominated for Entertainer Coach Driver of the Year eight times before winning tonight. Standing backstage with the trophy, he looked genuinely shocked.
Sarah Trahern, outgoing CEO of CMA after 13 years in the role, said her favorite memory of this event is that people bring their parents. They get to stand on stage and thank their family or spouse for all the nights they’ve been alone while the bus was rolling.
Takeaway: The people best positioned to honor this work are the ones doing it alongside you.
Try this: Think of one person in your camp who deserves to hear specifically what they did well recently. Don’t wait for an awards show. Tell them this week.
#2 The best people call it a service role
Allison Noah won Stage Manager of the Year. She said it without any ceremony: stage managing is a service role. You’re there to know your crew. What they need, what kind of day they’re going to have based on the venue, how to show up for them when they walk into the building. Not to be seen. To serve.
Robert Bull accepted Support Services Company of the Year on behalf of Clair Global and said the same thing a different way: you can buy black boxes anywhere. The differentiator is the people, as he said: “My only job is to help people. What a blessing that is.”
Diana McBride, the Unsung Hero winner, works backstage at the Grand Ole Opry and goes by Lemonade, because of her famous homemade lemonade she provides. When I asked why she was nominated, she said: “I do things for artists that I don’t have to do. I hold babies if they need to be held. Sew on buttons.”
Takeaway: The service mindset isn’t a personality type. It’s a professional choice you make every single day.
Try this: Before your next show, identify one thing you could do for someone on your crew that isn’t in your job description and do it without mentioning it.
#3 Nobody waited until they were ready
Meg Miller won Tour Manager of the Year for the second year with Lainey Wilson. Her first tour managing gig was with Lainey Wilson. She started out driving the van and selling merch. She said she always thought tour managing would be a 20-year goal, not the first one. When the opportunity came, she said yes and figured out the rest later.
Kerri Edwards won Artist Manager of the Year as manager of Luke Bryan, Cole Swindell, and others. She spent five years helping build Luke’s career in publishing before he asked her to become his manager. She almost said no. She was a songs person, not a management person. Her own reflection on it: “It was scarier to not take the leap.”
Megan Truesdell is on her first ever tour, camera ops and LED for Chris Stapleton. She said the hardest part was mental, not physical. Getting herself set up before walking into the venue. Knowing her attitude was going to land on the people around her whether she was ready or not.
Takeaway: Ready is something you become by doing the thing, not before it.
Try this: Name one opportunity you’ve been circling because you don’t feel ready. Then ask yourself honestly: what’s actually in the way, and is that reason going to be different in a year?
If you want to hear directly from the winners and nominees, listen to #64 of The Giggs Podcast: Backstage at The CMA Touring Awards. SPOTIFY | APPLE | YOUTUBE
— Nikki
P.S. One line I loved: Lainey Wilson’s camp won Crew of the Year, and her MD and guitarist, Aslan Freeman, said, “There are a lot of people in our crew that maybe wouldn’t be doing this for anyone else. But we do it for Lainey, with Lainey, and for each other.” That’s what a great camp feels like from the inside.
