And: where to look for such jobs? What would be the process to find them with any chance of success?
I hope the question in the title is general enough that more people might find it useful, I’m sure I can’t be the only one. I’m going to include some extra details specific to myself below, but you can just ignore them if you want to.
- I have no education beyond high school and no useful skills, although I do have a couple of years worth of work experience at this point. I don’t really have the will to learn anything new for the purpose of getting a job any more.
- I have been unbelievably lucky in that the circumstances allow me to live on minimum wage in humane conditions, and beyond the basic expenses I have nothing to spend money on anyway. So it doesn’t matter to me how much I get paid.
- I spend all of my free time on things like reading, drawing, writing, thinking, occasionally learning something new. If I could spend even just a couple of work hours every day with a pen and paper and an Internet connection, it would make me a bit happier.
Stagehanding
If you live in a city of somewhat reasonable size, there will consistently be concerts, political rallies, plays, corporate events, etc, that need a stage. Thus, there is a large industry dedicated to unloading trucks, moving things from here to there, building the stage, assembling set pieces, running AV, lighting, and pyro, taking care of anything and everything before, during, and after a show, and then packing everything up again. And this industry constantly needs fresh faces to show up to push this thing over here and tighten this thing with this wrench.
The upside is that it requires no work experience at all, is constantly hiring, has potential to teach you other more marketable skills like getting a forklift cert, and you can choose your shifts - working for multiple different companies at once and picking the shifts you want to work for who and when. Also, your coworkers tend to be cool, or at least characters - the whole industry has a sort of island of misfit toys feel. Your lunch table might include a college student working their summer job, a retiree making some extra income, an aging punk, a gruff blue collar guy, and an ex-felon, all shooting the shit about whatever is going on that day. And speaking of lunch - you typically get fed when you have a day that goes over 5 hours, and concert catering is gooooood.
The downside - lots of the guys who tour with the band, who are going to be the ones in charge of you for the day, can be real assholes. The rock’n’roll schedule will take its toll on your sleep cycle - lots of shifts will start at 10:30PM and end at 3AM. The work actively discourages thinking or creativity, as your tour guy already has everything figured out for exactly how he wants it, and will shout at you if you take the initiative to do it your own way. And if you are shy and have trouble advocating for yourself, you could just be stuck pushing boxes for years.
In my experience it’s a difficult industry to get a foot in, even tho I’ve had experience running cables, doing sound and flashing lights. Any tips on how to get a foot in the door? It is my dream industry, not gonna lie
iatse.net is a good place to start. I was an IA stagehand. Not sure of where you are…but you can check on this page.
The unions are often hiring, and if you’ve a skillset they can work with, you stand a good chance of being picked up… Depending on the local, if it is a mixed one, you can be seting up conventions doing rod and drapes or working to unload and load theatrical productions… TV commercials, political rallies… rock concerts, WWE wrestling!
The thing is, you will meet peopple in other production firms, like lighting and sound companies and if you network and get a good reputation as a solid, responsible worker, then either move up in the local, or take a withdrawal and go to one of the non-union shops. Try IA first.
I did some stage-hand work on the side for extra money, it was great. I got in by asking stage hands how they got in, which happened to be a couple bigger firms that contract out labour to shows. I signed up online, did half a day of paid safety training and was hired. The best part was being able to pick up or refuse whatever shifts came my way.