Pie4Weebl, you asked
@ship, but I'll answer, having observed the concert industry for quite some time. It will be interesting to compare/contrast my answers with his.
Concert LDs generally don't use assistants in the same way that
theatre LDs do, if at all. Concert LDs depend much more on their programmers, if they are not Designer/
Programmer. The best route, but certainly not the only one, and not nearly as simple or direct as I will make it sound is:
1)Get a job in a touring lighting shop slinging cable, teching moving lights, whatever. Work hard, but let your supervisors know you aspire to something higher.
2)Learn how to program the consoles they use, via offline programs or the actual consoles on your own time. This will pay off later, much later.
3)Get on a tour as a lighting guy, any position. Live/sleep on the bus, take showers sporadically, eat bad food, don't do drugs, work hard, learn more than you ever thought possible. Be under immense pressure to get the show up in 6 hours so the locals don't go into
meal penalty. Suck up to the
House Electrician so you get motor
power within 15 minutes, as opposed to 4 hours later. Demand, in the nicest way, that
forklift operators don't drive over your cables.
4)Work your way up to "Crew Chief." This may/probably will take several tours. Learning the skill of "people management" is more important at this
point than knowing which
gobo is on which wheel of a VL3000, (unless you're the ML tech) or how to pixel-map the
CMY fixtures to the
media server on a Maxxyz (unless you're the
programmer).
5)There will come a time when they'll need someone from the crew to run lights and
call spots for the opening act. You'll be given little if any extra pay, no time to program, you'll only be allowed to use a small part of the rig. Do your best.
6)If you're lucky, someone (the opening band's management, the main act's LD, a
production manager), will notice your work and ask you to program a small tour, with a more experienced designer.
7)If that designer likes your work, he will ask you to program another larger tour with him and act as
Lighting Director when he leaves. This may well be the pinnacle of your career. Enjoy it. As a matter of fact, stopping/pausing anywhere along the progression is possible, as is leaving the business entirely. You HAVE been thinking of what other fields might work for you, haven't you?
8)Most likely you'll never get to the
level of Steve Cohen or Roy Bennett or Willie Williams or Peter Morse, where you're so busy that you can't tour with the show, but design it and leave it in someone else's hands, but it is possible, just not probable.
Be nice to everyone, keep a good positive attitude. The mantra "it's who you know, not what you know" rings true, and to a lesser extent "it's not who you know, it's who you blow." Every person you work has the ability to possibly make or break your future. It's a small community and people talk about others all the time. I recently met FTF a member of
ControlBooth, and we discussed at length how the techs we remembered from shows were either the really good ones, or the really bad ones. Try not to fall into the latter
category.
In many ways, I think it's easier to become a
theatre LD than a concert LD. There's certainly more work available in the
theatre in this country, but it doesn't pay as well as the touring industry. YMMV.
Continue to read Nook Schoenfeld's excellent articles on the last
page of
PLSN. Read
The Business of Theatrical Design, James L. Moody. Allworth Press, 2002.
Hope this helps. Looking forward to reading
@ship's response. (
@ship--feel free to agree or refute anything I've said.)