How Should a Theatre Company Write a Technical Rider for International Touring?

Write the technical rider as a practical translation of the production for a venue you have not yet met. Start with the settled technical requirements of the show, separate what is essential from what can adapt, and state clearly which items the venue must provide, which the company brings, and which remain ‘to be agreed’. A rider should be written or reviewed by a technical director or technician who knows the production, then negotiated with the receiving venue’s technical director rather than issued as an unchangeable demand. Generator’s technical rider guide describes the rider as a document generated at the end of the technical period that should reflect the show’s technical requirements and can introduce potential presenters to what the production needs; it also notes that building a presenting agreement involves negotiating with the venue to marry its resources to those requirements (Artist Producer Resource).

The rider’s purpose: a working document, not a wish list

A technical rider—also called a tech rider—is the production document that tells a receiving venue what the show needs technically and how it is run. It is not simply a list of equipment. For a touring production it should give the venue’s technical director enough information to assess whether the theatre can present the work, what must be hired or adapted, and where the company’s own equipment and crew end and the venue’s begin. The guide recommends making the rider clear and forthright, and as detailed as necessary, while remembering that it is part of a negotiation rather than a unilateral instruction (Artist Producer Resource).

That distinction matters internationally. A rider can be an archival record of a production and a calling card for a remount or tour, but it is also an operational promise. If it lists equipment the company does not travel with, or hides an adaptation that the show cannot make, the error surfaces at the get-in. The rider should therefore describe the performance, not merely the inventory.

What changes when the tour crosses a border

Gary Hills’s guide to international touring describes international work as a national tour plus international extras: finding contacts, building relationships, research, long-term development and the practicalities of putting it together (Guide to International Touring). For the rider, those extras appear as differences in venue infrastructure, equipment stock, crew practice, language and documentation conventions. The rider cannot assume that the same lighting desk, projector, flying system or crew structure will be available in every country.

A published rider for The Empty Suitcase by Culturas em Movimento makes this explicit. It describes the production on tour and what adapts to each theatre, and states that the quantity and type of lighting, sound and projection equipment, and any rental, depend on each venue’s inventory and infrastructure; items marked ‘to be agreed’ are settled with the venue’s technical director (Culturas em Movimento technical rider). That is a useful model: the rider gives a fixed description of the show and a clear framework for local variation.

International touring also makes named responsibility more important. Battery Dance Company International’s touring toolkit stresses that one person on the tour should be responsible for planning and executing all technical elements. That person may be a company designer doing more than a designer would normally do, or a freelancer chosen for knowledge of the region or language; the toolkit notes that budgets may require one person to cover responsibilities that would ideally be split between a production designer and a stage manager (Battery Dance Company International). The same source lists the temperament and skills needed: patience, persuasion, repair skills, improvisation, calm under pressure, optimism, charisma, willingness to take on any task and leadership. The rider should make that person easy to identify.

Before drafting: assemble the production facts

Draft from the production as it actually runs, not from an older tour or a generic template. The rider for The Empty Suitcase shows the kind of summary that helps a venue: title, company, genre, running time, cast, language, music, stage format, premiere and touring record, among other production details (Culturas em Movimento technical rider). A company does not need to copy that exact order, but it should give the reader the same basic orientation.

Gather the following before writing: the final running time and interval; cast and travelling company; language of performance and any surtitles; music, playback and live musicians; set plan and floor requirements; lighting states, specials and control needs; sound reinforcement and playback; projection, video and mapping; rigging, masking and wings; power and cable runs; get-in, fit-up, technical rehearsal and get-out durations; the split between company-provided and venue-provided equipment; and the names and roles of the technical lead and advance contact. A useful test is whether a venue technical director who has never seen the show could picture the performance and identify the gaps.

A workable section order

The order below is a practical starting point, not a universal template. It follows the sequence in which a venue is likely to ask questions, from what the show is to what must be built, focused, plugged in, rehearsed and taken out.

The table is deliberately about information, not brand names alone. A venue needs to know what the equipment must achieve, not only which model the company used in its last theatre.

Language, units and version control

International riders fail quietly when the reader cannot tell whether ‘front light’ means the same thing in their venue, whether dimensions are metric or imperial, or whether the performance text is in one language and the surtitles in another. There is no single required language for a technical rider; agree the working language early. If English is the working language, use plain English, define abbreviations and avoid unexplained local slang. Where useful, provide bilingual headings or a short glossary for the venue’s technical team. State the language of the performance and of any surtitles or captions: the Culturas em Movimento rider, for example, lists Portuguese, with English and Simplified Chinese surtitles (Culturas em Movimento technical rider).

Use dated versions and page numbers, and keep a master rider plus venue-specific annexes. A reader should be able to see which version is current and which items have changed after the advance.

Negotiation: requirements, alternatives and ‘to be agreed’

The rider is where the company states requirements; the presenting agreement is where the company and venue settle what will actually happen. Generator’s guide describes the process as negotiating with the venue to come to an agreement that marries the venue’s resources to the production’s requirements (Artist Producer Resource). That means the rider should distinguish among at least four categories: company-provided, venue-provided, venue to confirm, and to be agreed. It can also be useful to mark needs as essential, preferred or adaptable—provided the labels are explained and used honestly.

‘To be agreed’ is not a hiding place for missing information. The Culturas em Movimento rider says such items are settled with the venue’s technical director (Culturas em Movimento technical rider). The company should therefore name who will settle each item, by when, and what the fallback is if the venue cannot meet the preferred option. If a venue lacks equipment, the rider can state what the production needs the equipment to do and what substitutions the company can accept; the venue can then check its inventory and hire where necessary.

Roles, advance work and the limits of the document

Have the rider written or at least reviewed by a technical director or a technician familiar with the production (Artist Producer Resource). On tour, give one person clear responsibility for the technical planning and execution (Battery Dance Company International). That person advances the rider with the venue, records agreed changes, and ensures that the final venue-specific plan reaches the crew. The rider should not be treated as a substitute for the contract, insurance, work permits, tax arrangements, rights permissions or a production-specific risk assessment; those matters need their own verification in the relevant jurisdiction.

Checklist before sending

• Has a technician who knows the production written or reviewed the rider?
• Does the first page identify the production, version date and technical contact?
• Are running time, interval, language and surtitles stated accurately?
• Are set, lighting, sound, projection, rigging and power needs described in performance terms?
• Are company-provided, venue-provided, venue-to-confirm and ‘to be agreed’ items separated?
• Are get-in, fit-up, technical rehearsal, performance and get-out durations realistic?
• Are units, abbreviations and specialised terminology clear to an outside reader?
• Are unresolved items assigned to a named person with a decision date and fallback?
• Has the rider been checked against the venue’s actual inventory and infrastructure during the advance?
• Is there a version-control system for changes agreed after sending?

Common mistakes

The most common problems are not exotic. A company may recycle a rider from a previous production; describe equipment without saying what it must achieve; list a venue-provided item without confirming that the venue has it; forget to state the language of the performance or surtitles; leave ‘to be agreed’ items without a decision-maker; or send a revised rider without a date. Generator’s guide stresses clarity and forthrightness, and the international examples above show why: the rider is read by people who cannot see the show and may be working in a different language and technical vocabulary (Artist Producer Resource). A rider that is detailed but unclear, or clear but inaccurate, is still a bad rider.

Conclusion

For international touring, a good technical rider is a controlled description of the production and a map of the decisions still to be made. It should be written from the settled show, reviewed by a technician, organised around the venue’s questions, explicit about what is fixed and what can adapt, and negotiated with the receiving theatre. The document does not remove uncertainty from an international tour, but it makes that uncertainty visible early enough to solve.