It’s not the sexiest part of the world of rock ‘n’ roll, but few can argue with its importance. After all, the band can fly around in their private jets or arrive with all the creature comforts they want in their custom coaches, but if the gear doesn’t arrive on time, safely and soundly, there’s not a lot that can happen. The trucking industry relies on plenty of tricks (and lots of logistical planning) to get their job done. Even the smallest part of the job is constantly under scrutiny — and the bigger parts even more so.
Making it fit together all nicely, for example, is an art and a science. Considering the standard exterior width of trailers today is 102 inches long, with an interior width of 96 inches to 99 inches, depending on the trailer, that’s where all the planning of packing has to start and end.
“The entertainment trucking industry is for all intents and purposes ‘shipper load and count,’” says Steve Maples of Rock-it Cargo. Founded in 1974 in the U.K., Rock-it Cargo now has trucking divisions in Denver and Los Angeles. “So while everyone on the trucking side at one time or another has been left a pile of gear and no clear instructions on how to load it into a truck, for the most part it’s the client or vendor who determines how many trucks are necessary and is responsible for the proper loading.
“While it might make terrific sense to me to put the ‘skeg throttle’ on the truck before all the widgets and doowamps, when the stage manager unloads the truck at the venue with 9,000 IA hands, a hung-over crew and a tempestuous LD all standing around waiting to go to work, he’ll inevitably need the ‘skeg throttle’ first and have no where to put all the widgets, let alone the doowamps.”
Egotrips has been providing trucking and transportation services to the entertainment industry for over 35 years. “As a company, we strive to exceed our client’s expectations,” says owner Jim Bodenheimer. And that certainly has to happen, considering how the trucks are loaded. For Bodenheimer, the truck pack is a skill learned from years of experience. “Truck packing is one of things that our senior drivers are constantly teaching the younger members of our team,” he says. “Since almost everything is on casters, it is important to use bars and straps throughout the load to avoid damage to the equipment. Ideally about every 10 feet, a row of cases should be off their wheels to prevent the load from moving if the truck has to stop suddenly.”
He adds that some cases are designed for stacking. The indentations in the lids allow for the caster wheels of similar-sized case to be placed on top. “Most cases are built to customer specifications. When a number of cases will be packed three across or four across a trailer, the case size becomes important to maximize space utilization in the trailer.” He adds that this is especially important to consider when packing video equipment.
Both agree that there is no cookie-cutter approach to loading a truck, and the variables are nearly boundless. “Every case has its own personality, pathos and needs,” says Maples. “There is a cottage industry within the touring business where highly trained professionals sit down with each case and talk through its needs for disposition. Not surprisingly, with new cases being designed and built every day, other than the third and fifth Wednesday of each month, this is burgeoning part of the business and one that PLSN should urge their readers entering the industry, or old hands interested in a career change, to explore,” Maples adds. “The minds of case makers and equipment manufacturers are well beyond my expertise to fathom, but for the most part the successful ones, and certainly those with an eye to remaining in business through the years, pay close attention to size when designing their products.”
One of the “tricks” of the trade is pretty basic, though easier said than done; that of “providing excellent drivers and late model equipment at reasonable prices,” states Bodenheimer. The “driver” part of that equation can be particularly challenging.
“More goods travel by trucks than ever before, so finding and retaining drivers is the greatest challenge facing all the carriers in the U.S.,” says Maples. “This task is exacerbated by the fascist regime’s soured relations with our Canadian neighbors, who are enforcing immigration laws with greater ferocity than ever before, as well as the regulations imposed on driver screening by the Orwellian hunt for terrorists within our midst, and the fiscal pressure imposed on the transportation industry to provide service at lesser cost, while faced with wildly high fuel and equipment costs,” Maples adds. “It’s a wonder that anyone can even qualify to drive a truck.”
At Egotrips, current drivers usually refer new drivers. “We require that new drivers have extensive driving experience. We are looking for team players that will work well with other tour crewmembers. We receive many unsolicited applications. Each applicant is carefully reviewed. The challenge is finding truck drivers that they truly understand the entertainment touring industry.
“The trucking industry as a whole is around 18,000 to 20,000 drivers short,” says Roadshow Services’ David Kiely. “The absolute worse driver can pickup a phone and find work at some other place in less than five hours. Finding qualified people is harder and harder.”
Roadshow, which has been serving the industry since 1982, continues to develop the “tricks” necessary to find and keep good drivers. These drivers have to really drive and make it through all kinds of weather. He points out that during those ultra hard rains when other trucks are on the side of the road, these trucks keep going.
“We try to find guys with stable lives — people with families and mortgages.” Still, turnover is “huge” and a problem for every company in the country with a truck fleet. Oddly, despite this, the laws of supply and demand don’t necessarily apply and salaries for drivers are not going up.
“I don’t think the pay is where it should be for them,” he says. Kiely believes that this is due in large part because the music business is now run by lawyers and accountants, and at the end of the day, “they think a truck is a truck. The result is you will see very competitive bids between trucking companies, sometimes within $25 of each other.”
Exasperating as these challenges, are, there is now a new one; and that, of course, is the cost of fuel. Kiely says his fuel bill can be $25,000 to $45,000 a night. This is going to change some old habits. For example, bus drivers always get a hotel room, but truck drivers get money for a hotel room.
Typically they sleep in the truck with the engine idling. This can burn $6 to $7 an hour. Add to that the environmental concerns of these trucks just idling like that and soon we’ll see drivers being forced to stay in hotels.
Maples says the typical fill up for a truck with two 150-gallon tanks is an eye-popping $1,500, which “will float the beast for about 1,500 miles.” The costs, Maples says, are passed on to the buyer as a fuel surcharge. “Most people use the EID website to calculate the fuel surcharge, which publishes the costs of fuel nationally and regionally every Monday of the prior week.”
There’s also been a surge in the use of biofuels the past few years. You might think that these would cost less than petroleum fuel, but you’d be wrong. “The effect of biofuels on the food banks and agriculture industry are well documented,” Maples said. “If fuel reaches $5 a gallon then it might spur a demand for a federal program to pursue alternative fuels and put the whole energy dilemma on the front burner. But with this administration, certainly, the solution will be to slap Flex on every car and then go drill for more oil in Anwar, or some pristine South Pacific island, or maybe Beverly Hills.”
Regardless of the tricks they implement, it will ultimately be up to the tour managers and the bookers to deal with the crunch. Kiely points out that they need to look at routings. “And now we’re dealing with the electronics — GPS, electronic tolls, prepass at the weighing stations… We can tell exactly what time a driver left a show and exactly what time he or she gets there. The days of the big drives may soon be over.”
Legislation mandating 34 hours off for every seven days, the so-called “reset,” is also changing the way tours are scheduled. And those who insist that a band needs to play five shows a week in order to break even are going to have to get very creative about how it’s all planned.
Big changes, says Kiely, are on the horizon, including the launching of more festivals and consolidation of performances. Also, look for idling to be targeted. “The government is going to start implementing more idling devices. Already you can’t idle these trucks in California, New York, New Jersey and Washington, among other places. And in some of these places you can’t even run a generator,” he says. “It’ll be a case where every truck built after 2015 will have some kind of anti-idling device, and I think that’s where the industry will go.”
