Half-way through her high school freshman year, Amy Melia says her mind was blown when she realized that people actually made a living working on concerts. “Are you kidding me?” she thought. It turned out to be no joke as, already in her young career, she has toured with Aly & AJ as Lighting Programmer and Director; worked festivals with Lennon Stella and Big Sean as Lighting and Video Director; was part of Cam’s The Otherside tour followed by MAX’s North American tour as Lighting Programmer and Director; worked Suki Waterhouse’s Coolest Place in the World tour as Lighting Director; and is currently out on Lizzy McAlpine’s The End of the Movie tour as Lighting Programmer and Director. “I thought doing anything with music was the craziest thing anybody can do, and I still believe that!” she says.
Dream On
Melia spent most of her teen years in Houston. “I caught the concert buzz early when I was in the fourth grade with one of my first concerts being Aerosmith,” she says. “I really got obsessed with that band and I had to know everything about them.” She worked on learning guitar, took singing lessons, and became enthralled with everything rock music.
At Houston-area Clear Springs High School, she found herself taking a technical theater course with David Barker, “the first teacher who fully believed in me—just a world of support and I would not be anywhere without him.” She started working in local theaters downtown during the summer and in her free time, including for comedy and magic acts. On the latter, “I’d be wearing all black in a Texas summer, catching the doves that the magician would release,” she laughs. She then went off to the University of Cincinnati where she received a BFA in Lighting Design & Technology.
Her summers proved as educational as her time in classrooms. Her first was spent as an Electrics Assistant at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen. Her second summer put her on the ground floor of this business—literally: She worked at Cincinnati’s Vincent Lighting Systems, learning about live event lighting from the ground up, starting with packing orders, general warehouse work, and working small gigs. “It was a great place to learn the [High End System’s] Hog 4 as well as get acquainted with new gear,” she says. That third summer she had a different experience working at Cross Light in Sunman, IN, an ETC Rep firm which focused on architectural lighting. “It was funny because there I was programming ETC Mosaic touchscreen panels for high schools—it was totally different, but I didn’t care because I wanted to learn every part of the industry.” For the summer of 2021, she was back in Aspen, this time at the Aspen Music Festival as Production Manager and Lighting Director. Then that fall, she got to fill in as Lighting Director for Gabby Barrett, who was opening for Thomas Rhett. That gig had her working her first amphitheater. “It was insane—I had to figure that one out,” she says with a sigh.
Sharpening Skills
She then decided to make Las Vegas her home and her base for her freelance career (“It’s a poor man’s L.A.,” she quips). There she connected to 4Wall, doing freelance work with them including being a shop tech, programmer, whatever was needed. If say, a school needed a last-minute fill-in for an event, Melia was quick to volunteer. “I definitely learned a lot, and met a lot of people,” she says. “And working in a shop of that caliber really sharpened my skills.” Corporate gigs ensued as well, then came an out-of-the-blue email from the Aly & AJ camp that would officially launch her touring career. The tour consisted of North American dates plus a few in Canada, a total of 35 performances. “It was easy but felt cursed,” she says. There were so many bus breakdowns; the crew went through six of them in just two months. They all got Covid. Other unusual calamities ensued, any of which would have discouraged most of us from pursuing this line of work, but Melia was undaunted.
Melia next worked on some Lennon Stella shows and a one-off with Big Sean in Calgary. Then the country artist Cam needed a Lighting Director and Programmer. “That was an amazing experience working with great people and a beautiful set,” she says. She adds that Cam was supportive, offering “so much feedback that it really inspired me—it was during those show I felt like I could totally do this.”
A call to work with MAX came next, giving her yet another level of real-world experience. The design involved stacking Portman Lights’ P2 Hexaline fixtures to spell “MAX” every night, which necessitated a stage footprint that didn’t perfectly fit in every venue the show landed. The skill of figuring out—on the fly—what visual aspects would fit at a given venue is a skill every lighting director has to develop, and it was here Melia had her chance. “It took a big chunk of power to find out what we could or could not do.” This January, she went out with Waterhouse as Lighting Director without also handling programming duties—a first for her. “It was good to focus on just lighting duties, facilitating changes on the road while seeing her career skyrocket.” And the calls kept coming: Next was from Upstaging needing help on the Keith Urban Las Vegas residency. “It was just as a tech, but I learned so much.” She got to be Robe RoboSpot operator and be part of a show with a design that was “super slick. It was great to work on that.”
Sticking with Plan A
She says she loves meeting new people on a tour and enjoys the quick bonding that follows. “You might only be together for two months, but at the end you feel like you’ve been together for five years. You get on a bus full of strangers and you get off with a bus full of friends.” Melia does acknowledge there are challenges to being a woman on the road in this business. If there is ever a disparaging word from someone about either her age or her sex, she says she just keeps doing the work because “it’s not going to stop me.” In those times, she also remembers the women who have paved the way before her and, “while there is more work to be done to create an even playing field, if we give up now, nothing is going to change. And there are those who view age and being a woman as a strength, who are trying to get more women involved. I definitely recognize that a lot has changed in this post-pandemic world, and I’m very grateful for the opportunities but am not blind to why a lot of doors are opened these days.”
She says she recognizes and appreciates all the opportunities that have come her way. “There are people who have vouched for me and opened doors I never thought to even knock on,” she says. “I will not give up when faced with a negative response for any reason, be it my age or my gender. Those who came before didn’t, and if I do, then we can never change the game for those who will come after us.”
Her advice to others is simply to skip the idea of having a “Plan B.” “If you have a Plan B, do that, because this Plan A is demanding. If this is your Plan A, do it. I’m literally having the best time in my life, and if you want to do it, take the time to learn, take the training, read the manuals, then nothing can stand in your way.”
At this point does she have a long-term plan? “It’s a crazy overall plan, but the next goal is to continue growing as a programmer and meeting other people and learning from their workflow. In this industry, you can constantly grow because there are a million ways to do the same thing. The goal is to just to continue loving the work and getting on bigger shows and being part of crazier spectaculars. And just keep on living the dream.”
