WHAT IS YOUR POSITION? WHAT ARE YOU IN CHARGE OF?
My position is stage manager/production manager. I handle the production of the shows. I have a great team that includes three stagehands, a sound man, a lighting guy, head rigger (person who secures lighting and sound equipment from beans high over the stage), electricians and building engineers.
TELL ME ABOUT THE VARIETY OF EVENTS AT ASSEMBLY HALL.
Basketball games, concerts, plays, dinners, monster truck rallies – a little of everything. The types of events that go on change frequently. It could be a concert one day and a basketball game the next.
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO GET THE STAGE READY FOR A SHOW?
Our director works with a booking agent. They figure out a date. Once we get stage specifications, one of our stagehands sits down and does an AutoCAD drawing of their stage. We have to put the stage in a certain spot to get the maximum number of seats. We send the drawing back to the show’s managers, and they’ll send it back to us with any corrections. The ticket office gets the final drawing, and then we wait for the artist to arrive.
Setting up the stage can be a long process, depending on the show. If we have a basketball game the day before, we have to dismantle the floor, which is made up of 4-by-8 sheets of wood. The floor stacks up and the scoreboard folds up and goes back into storage. That process can begin right after the game is over and go until 4 or 5 a.m.
At about 7:30 a.m., the artist’s equipment trucks show up, and we start putting the stage together. The first two or three hours can be hectic – there can be more than 100 people rushing around to set things up.
Whatever the show asks for, we try to come close to providing unless it’s outrageous. For example, a show could call for dry ice or certain kinds of equipment for pyrotechnic stage visual effects. If an artist like Bob Dylan comes in with 12 of their own people, we bring in another 30 to set up sound equipment and other features of their stage. Assembly Hall provides nothing except lighting and stage.
Most of the requests are all basically the same thing – nice dressing rooms, people to help set up their gear, power lines, Internet connections. Some of them have weird requests.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THOSE WEIRD REQUESTS?
Most really outrageous ones came from artists back in the ’80s, but I’ve seen some interesting things here too. An artist who came here several years ago wanted curtains down the tunnel so he could walk out into the arena in private. Right before he came out of his dressing room, we all had to turn around and face the wall so he had his privacy. Another group of artists wanted their own showerheads installed in the showers. Some have shown up with their own Ping Pong tables or workout equipment.
WHAT IS YOUR DAILY ROUTINE LIKE?
On a non-event day, I’m here from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. We’ll be working on shows in advance or maintaining equipment. During an event day, I’ll show up around 7 a.m. and get out of here around 11 p.m. or midnight. Mostly what we’re doing is setting up gear. For a show like Rascal Flatts, who is coming at the end of January, there are 12 or 13 trucks of equipment we’ll help set up. I oversee everything, which can be 80 or 90 people getting the show ready.
ARE ALL SHOWS THAT MUCH WORK?
We do smaller ones too – Ben Folds also is coming in January, and that will be a smaller show with less equipment, so setting it up is not nearly as intense. Comedians have very little to set up.
In working around so many musicians and celebrities, do you get to interact with them much?
We don’t talk to the artists who come here to perform. It’s kind of an unspoken rule that we give them privacy. We don’t approach the artists. We want them to be able to comfortably prepare for their shows.
TELL ME ABOUT HOW YOUR CAREER EVOLVED.
I started back in 1975 right after graduating from Centennial High School. I was a piano player in a band and realized I wasn’t very good at it. I liked being around shows so I started doing lighting and sound for the band. That eventually evolved into doing lighting exclusively. I began my own lighting company and ran it for more than 25 years. I worked in most of the venues around the Champaign-Urbana area, and several other places in the Midwest. I worked with a lot of bands that had local and regional followings. I did the lighting for national acts who came to town for one night like B.B. King, George Thorogood and Joan Jett. Altogether, I probably worked for 700 or 800 different bands over time.
HAVE YOU ALWAYS LIKED MUSIC?
Yes. I started going to concerts when I was young. The first band I ever saw was the Beatles in St. Louis in 1964 or 1965 when I was 7 or 8 years old. My mom and dad took me.
WHAT DID YOU THINK?
It was way cool.
DAVE ROESCH FAST FACTS
Favorite hang-outs: Buffalo Wild Wings with co-workers; to see live shows: The Canopy Club, Memphis on Main and Cowboy Monkey.
Family: Two daughters: Jessie, 21, works in Sierra Leone, Africa, doing humanitarian work; Melissa, 18, attends the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles.
Favorite band: Here Come the Mummies
Favorite places to visit: Colorado and New York City