Travel – The Thein Way to Live

Music, Roadie, Travel, Uncategorized, Work

Vermont and Rhode Island- States Number 48 and 49

Posted on April 3, 2023 by Jaimee T

If you read this blog, you know that most of my writing is about the music industry. Since my work is slow right now, I figured I’d write about the other part of my life: traveling. I travel on the tour bus from show to show so I see a lot of the country from the tour bus. Technically, I’ve probably been to all the states based on driving. However, I don’t count that. I think that it’s important to spend time in each state that I’ve been to. I can personally tell you the pros and cons of each state.

This trip wasn’t a work trip, but it’s very important to mention these two states due to the nature of being a roadie. As a roadie, our agent books shows in certain areas based on contracts with the venues. Since the surrounding areas of Vermont and Rhode Island are surrounded by states such as Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania, it’s safe to say there’s really no reason to go to those states. With the states being so close in driving distance, it’s pretty easy to head over to Boston if you live in Rhode Island and go to New Hampshire if you live in Vermont

Basically, we aren’t suppose to do a show within an hour and half of each other, to keep the competition between the venues and such. Since my goal is to go to all 50 states, it was my mission to go to Vermont and Rhode Island.

It’s still snowing in Vermont, so I was lucky to catch the tail end of the spring ski season. Of course, on the last day, they got hit with snow, which I missed. But I will say it was much better skiing than I expected it to be. I figured the snow would be gone and the mountains wouldn’t be worth it. To say the least, I was impressed. Well done Vermont, I would love to come back to ski.

As we make our way down to Boston, I’ve been to Boston several times. Great city, but the mission was to go to Rhode Island. So we took the hour drive to go down and hang out with all the big mansions on Ocean Avenue. Have a very expensive and delicious lunch, and have a look at the cute towns on the water. I really wish I was born into a wealthier family.

If you haven’t been to that area, I strongly suggest you go. It’s very beautiful, there is a lot of history, great food and of course drinks. It’s very easy to drive from place to place but public transportation is great too! Now I will say… the highways in Boston are super confusing and not everyone is super friendly, and it was surprisingly still really cold for this time of year. There are more pros than cons to the northeastern part of the states. So you should go!

I think it’s important to say this, every state has its’ own personality, history, and more importantly story. There’s a lot each state has to offer big or small. Make sure you try to travel far and wide to go all the states.

career, entertainment, Music, Uncategorized

What’s Next?

Posted on February 14, 2023 by Jaimee T

This year, everyone thought 2023 would be completely back to normal. Everything would be fine and it would be like 2020 never happened. Well, that’s not the case. Between inflation, skyrocketing prices, and gas, people can’t tour. There are a lot of many factors, but the main one is money.

There’s been a lot of talk in the industry that people are taking it really slow this year. Are they working on music, are they taking time off, or are there just stepping back and waiting to see what’s going on in the world. I can’t go into too many logistics but basically, it’s very expensive to tour for just a couple of days.

You have to rent the equipment, rent tour buses, get gas, get groceries, pay for the trucks, get hotel rooms, and possibly flights, did I mention you have to pay the crew? The crew includes as far and wide as TM, PM, PA, lighting, video, rigging, audio, truck drivers, and bus drivers. Then on top of it, as an artist, you have to pay your agent, your manager, your record label, and your publicist… you see where I’m getting at with this.

With the cost of everything going up, it doesn’t make sense to tour. Especially for the smaller/ just getting started artists. Let’s say you are an artist and you are going to about 500/2000 person venue(s). Right, so depending on your contract, you are either getting a set rate or you are getting a portion of the ticket sales. Now depending on the venue, these ticket sales can be anywhere from 5 dollars to 75 dollars. And that’s not including taxes and fees. Chances are, the ticket sales, or your rate, are not going to cover the amount to pay everyone, pay the expenses, and then pay yourself just to go out for the weekend.

So what’s next? As an industry, we need to think about new and inventive ways to make money. Will Las Vegas residency become a thing? Where an artist just stays in one city for a certain amount of time? Will venues have to start paying more for the acts to come to their city? It’s a real toss-up with what will happen next, but we just have to keep trucking and see what happens.

This is a great article about the harsh realities of our industry. I hope you take a read!

https://musicmayhemmagazine.com/lorde-explains-harsh-reality-of-touring-in-2022-says-its-a-demented-struggle-to-break-even-or-face-debt/#:~:text=Press%20Image%20Provided-,Lorde%20Explains%20Harsh%20Reality%20Of%20Touring%20In%202022%2C%20Says%20It’s,Break%20Even%20Or%20Face%20Debt%E2%80%9D&text=New%20Zealand%20singer%2Dsongwriter%20Lorde,side%20of%20touring%20in%202022.

career, entertainment, Music, Travel

Down Under Part 4: Auckland, New Zealand

Posted on December 20, 2022 by Jaimee T

While I could stay in Australia forever and ever, it was time to finish our tour in Auckland, New Zealand. I’m going to sound like a spoiled brat, but I’m telling you this for future reference. If you decide to go to New Zealand, make the south island a priority. I think it is prettier, greener, and most of it has all the “fun stuff” that everyone talks about. Skydiving, white water rafting, Milford Sound, you get the picture. The south island is where everything is at. I especially love Queenstown, I can’t wait to go back there. There’s a reason why they call it the “adventure capital” of the world.

Auckland is the one of New Zealand’s biggest urban cities. It’s also known for its skyline and all the other cool islands around it. Other than that, I can’t say that much about Auckland. To me it’s another big city, but all the surrounding islands and landscapes around it is pretty cool. You can drive two hours to see where they filmed Lord of the Rings, there’s also all of these cool mud hot springs, but also great wine and wildlife in the area. There are tons of boat tours and tons of scenery to see outside the city.

Luckily, I’m a chatterbox, and I was told by a handful of locals to go to Waiheke Island, basically not known for much except for sights, food, and lots of wine. It was just starting to get into the summer, so not too many people were on the beaches. But it’s better than the weather that I’m currently experiencing in Nashville. I would totally go back early in the morning because it would be a good day trip… to drink wine and eat food.

I was under the weather and due to high restrictions still in place in New Zealand, I was not allowed in the venue. I think the show went well, but I was working from my hotel room. Overall, the run down under went fairly smoothly with some bumps and hiccups in the road.

I’ll be completely honest, touring down under is hard and arduous. There are no tour buses and you are dealing with a big island that’s the size of the US. If you don’t plan accordingly, you’ll be going up and down left and right, flying all around til you get to the show. You’ll get crowds in Australia, but you won’t get the sleep on show days.

It was a great learning experience. It taught me more about traveling, traveling fast-paced in a large country, but most importantly about me. It taught me a lot about my patience, my value, and my worth. But more importantly, I like to think I’m pretty good at my job. It’s very easy in this industry to get lost in what you do, to get lost in the sea of people, but just stand up for yourself and just do your job well.

Easier said than done.

career, entertainment, Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Work

Australia Part 3: Sydney

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Jaimee T

I’ll be completely honest, I really wasn’t looking forward to writing this blog post. I love Sydney and I miss it all the time. Bringing up memories of living there makes me miss it more and more each day. Writing this blog makes me very nostalgic and happy but it also makes me sad. Because the life I had in Sydney is the life that helped me create the life that I had for myself today. It’s a big part of who I am today. It’s a good thing, but remembering Sydney really makes me miss it.

It’s also a big reason why I work in the music industry today. I moved to Australia because the recession hit the midwest so bad people weren’t hiring interns. I decided to do something about it and move away. I ended up working for the Willoughby City Council as a public relations/events intern which led to the start of my career. Eleven years later, here I am, working in the music industry. Living on a tour bus, writing to you amazing people.

Living in Australia and then coming back for work was very surreal. It was a full circle of my career and it made me realize I accomplished more than I give myself credit for. I’ve worked very hard for my live events career, and I never take any part of my travels or any part of my job as just “another day”.

I’ve heard a lot of people over the years talk about Sydney and say “it’s not that great of a city”. I always ask “why” because I’m genuinely curious. Most people don’t think it has a lot of culture, it’s just another big city, and it’s not that wow factor. The list goes on, you get what I’m saying. I don’t think people really appreciate the beauty of Sydney. There is culture, food, wildlife, and everyone from everywhere in all sorts of walks of life.

There are famous beaches surrounding the East coast of Sydney, there’s a lot of Eastern and Western culture embedded all around Sydney, and I’m sorry, maybe you have been to the wrong places but I’ve had some of the best food there.

Sydney is also famous for the Sydney Opera House and the Blue Mountains. Sydney has everything that any big city should have. Did I mention they have pretty decent weather year round?

I could on and on about Sydney. The wonderfully nice people, open-mindedness, and beautifulness of seeing everyone for what and who they are. Don’t get me wrong, every big city has its problems. But I have never heard people complain about the dating or job shortages in that city.

The best part about working and touring in Sydney is experiencing my work in the city that started my career. It was probably one of the largest crowds we had through out the tour. The venue is extremely well laid out and it’s very easy to navigate and get from the CBD to the west side of the city. I loved working and touring there, I would do it all over again if I could.

Uncategorized

Australia part 2: Melbourne and the Bush

Posted on November 8, 2022 by Jaimee T

Melbourne or (Mel-Bin) is a very cool city. It was the first city outside of Melbourne I visited when I first moved to Australia. Just a quick run down of Melbourne and why I think so many people love it!

It is a very hip, progressive city in the southeast corner of Oz. It’s very well known for its sports scene and has one of the best surfing places in the world. You might have heard of the movie “Point Break”… well that’s where it was filmed. All of the best surfers know that southeast Australia is where you go for some of the best surf in the world.

Melbourne also has a lot of history. It’s one of the wealthiest cities when it comes to bringing in money to Australia. It also has a lot of history when it comes to art, the history of the people, and why people live in Melbourne. I hate to compare cities but it’s very similar to Seattle. Great music scene, great sports scene, very mild climate, and great outdoors.

One of the reasons why Melbourne is so popular is because it’s not Sydney, like, in the states, we don’t want to move to New York or LA. We want to live in a city where we can afford to eat. Melbourne seems to be affordable, you can live within 15 minutes of the city and not have a ton of roommates. It also has a very mild climate, yes it can get cold, but it’s not super cold and never super warm either. A little bit more variation in weather than Seattle has.

Being on tour in Melbourne, was one of a kind experience. It was an awesome arena and a lot of people internationally performed and toured there. The fans are great in Melbourne, maybe it’s because it is known for its music scene but, damn they know how to rock. Also, there’s no such thing as bad food in Melbourne, at least not what I’ve experienced. There’s something very special about Melbourne, I highly recommend going to St. Kilda, CBD, and down to the Great Ocean Road.

Now, I know everyone loves Steve Erwin and Crocodile Dundee. But I’m going to tell you this right now, going to the bush, is not as great as people make it out to be. Think of bush as middle-of-nowhere America. You either have a lot of grass, a lot of rock, or a lot of dirt. It’s hard to live out there because there’s not much of an agriculture scene or water for that matter. That’s why 90% of the country lives on the coast.

I hate to break it to you, but when you live out in the middle of nowhere, everyone comes to the shows, because there’s nothing else to do out there. It’s really hard to tell if the fan base is legitimate or if people are bored and they have nothing else better to do. Either way, getting out to any part of the bush takes a long time, a lot of money, and a lot of energy. If you go out to the country side of Oz, be very prepared.

entertainment, Music, Travel, Uncategorized

Back to the Land Down Under

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Jaimee T

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been back down under. To say the least, I was excited to be back.

One of the reasons why I was excited to be back, is because Australia changed my life. I learned a lot about myself and I learned a lot about life and what it meant to me. I learned that if I wanted something, I had to get it, if I wanted something to change I had to do it, if I had a challenge ahead of me I had to work through it.

I’m sure this would be the same thing if I had an internship in Europe, but my friend group and the people I have met over there changed my life for the better. It was truly one of the most remarkable and greatest experiences of my life. I truly cherished every second of it and I’ll never for

Just a couple of things you need to know about Australia:

Yes, there are the most dangerous animals down there but don’t worry if you are hanging out in the city, you’ll be fine. If you hang out in the bush, you’re going to have some problems… maybe.
Australia is America flipped upside down with a twist of Eastern influence run by the British monarchy. It’s a very unique and unexplainable in a way. Between the architecture, food, art, music, there’s a lot of mixes of each of the different cultures.
People are genuinely nice, I haven’t met “mean” Aussies, crazy yes, mean not so much. I think when your background comes from criminal descent, you just want to be treated like you’re not a criminal.
Overall, Australia tends to be very liberal believe in universal health care, “freeish” education, and of course clean drinking water.
As of a google search of today, there are only 25.69 million Australians, to put that into perspective, there are 39 million people who live in California.
Yes, Australia is expensive, but what do you expect living on a big island so close to Antartica.
Australia is the size of the United States, so Perth is LA and Atlanta is to Sydney. It’s very wide and very large.
The seasons are “backwards”, so for example, are fall is starting as their spring approaches.
Australians love their music and they love their country music. I was astonished how many people knew my bosses songs.

This was the first time I went to Brisbane, was when I went to the Gold Coast about 11 years ago. Most people that go to Brissy go to the Gold Coast. It’s where the waterparks, night clubs, and all the tourists/family stuff is. Brissy is a cool city, but I think there’s more around the city like the wildlife sanctuaries and the beaches. Brisbane was a great place to start tour, the weather was nice, it’s in the middle of the country on the coast, and it was easy to go north or south. I think if I go back to Brisbane, I’ll spend more time by the beaches.

Brisbane, Australia

Music, Travel, Uncategorized, Work

Europe Tour Part 2- The Drive to the Netherlands/Netherlands/Denmark

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Jaimee T

This really wasn’t the “tour” part, this was the travel part from the UK to the Netherlands. But I will say I got to see a lot of the world… through a double-decker tour bus. If you haven’t been to Europe, you figure out really quickly, that a lot of these countries are very close. Driving through to the UK, to take a ferry to France, then the drive to the Netherlands, you hit about 6 countries just within that drive alone. However, you do get to see some neat scenery from the cliffs of dover, to the great big large ports on the coast.

While you sleep a lot on the bus, because what else do you do on a tour bus with 11 other people, you kind of just watch the world roll by. It’s a beautiful thing to watch the scenery as you drive to your next destination. As we get off the buses in Tilburg, everyone, everywhere is riding a bike. If you know anything about me, I love public and eco-friendly transportation. Tilburg is about an hour outside from Amsterdam, a cute little tiny, just making fresh food and coffee. It made me realize staying in this city that we really can do things better in America. From food, to work life, to transportation, there are better ways and things can always be improved. One of the many cities I’m lucky enough to experience that I may never go to again.

The show in Tilburg was great, a small cute venue I would love to go back to again. However, the city struggled as it reached record temperature highs, and they don’t have AC. My favorite part of my show was my runners, I can’t do my job without the runners, and they really help me out. Harold and Max, if you are reading this, I’ll give you recommendations any day.

Fun little fact about the Netherlands, it has the best tap water in all of Europe to drink!

Then we made the trip to Denmark, and I wish we had more time to spend in Copenhagen. From unique buildings and structures, the history, and the diversity of food is outstanding. The venue we were at was well designed, easily one of the best venues I’ve been to and the venue staff is very accommodating. I wish I could have stayed longer there, but I guess I’m very excited to see where life takes me next. My plan is spend more time in Copenhagen, I have a really good friend from there, I know there’s more to offer in Copenhagen!

career, entertainment, Life, Music, Travel, Uncategorized

Europe Tour Part 1- The UK

Posted on August 3, 2022 by Jaimee T

To say I wasn’t nervous about going over to Europe, would be a big lie. I’ve been working in events for about 11 years now. It’s always growing and changing, so you have to keep up with the times. Since I haven’t been to Europe on tour, I didn’t know what to expect. I was worried that accents would get in the way, culture/work habits would be a problem, or even just being American working over in Europe would get in the way. I’m extremely hypersensitive to what is going on in the world and how the world views the states. It’s not an appearance thing or vanity for that matter, I just don’t want people to take me as a joke. I’m here to work, I’m open-minded and I want to adapt to the situation I’m in as best as I can.

There are always problems in the events world, and our job is always to have a solution to those problems. Of course, the first thing that happens when we get over there, KLM lost 14 bags including my own. 14, that’s a pretty big number, and I knew we weren’t alone in that! Of course, there was/is a shortage of workers, and I’m sure there was a strike going on, but what I tell everyone, if you can’t handle the workload, just don’t take it on, and that includes airlines. So it wasn’t a good start but the very next day, our luggage finally made it to the UK.

We are very lucky and found an awesome work crew to travel with us, SoundForce Crew, if you ever need extra hands on your tour, these are your guys. Urban was the leader and a true leader at that. It’s great working with people that have the same type of work ethic as you do. The last thing he said to me was, “you are truly good at your job.” What he doesn’t know is I feel the same exact way, and I think he’s amazing at his job. Hiring those guys if you can while you are working in Europe. They made our first day go by very smoothly and let me handle other things like finding luggage.

Glasgow was the first start to the tour, and man what a day it was. From trying to understand accents to try to get everyone’s luggage, it was a very interesting start. I learned very early on, Europeans are a little bit more relaxed (I should have known that from my travels over there before), maybe it’s just the midwestern in me that’s always “Go Go GO” but it made me take a step back with my runners, and think “OK this is how they work over here.” It’s not a bad thing, just a different pace of work.

The biggest issue I had in Glasgow was the accents. Man, did I have a hard time understanding all the venue workers. Literally, my biggest fear on my first day on tour was not being able to communicate with them. They speak English for crying out loud, and I still had to ask them to repeat themselves 100x over. However, they all made me laugh so hard, that I cried. I needed that on my first day on the road in Europe. I even made a dog friend over there! I can’t wait to go back… but this time with my luggage.

With all the hiccups and such we made it through the day. However, we had to take a ferry overnight. I stupidly slept through the ferry which you are not supposed to do, but needless to say, the rest of my guys got up and they were very tired going over to Ireland.

Dublin is everything you imagined and dreamed of. It’s the place of music, art, and culture. It was fantastic and I can’t wait to go back. We had great burgers for after-show food and gathered lots of great information about Dublin and the history behind it. And of course, people were thrilled to see the boss man on stage. I couldn’t have asked for a better second show in Europe.

The thing that stuck out the most to me in Dublin, was the number of tourists. Where I’m from in Milwaukee, we have a huge Irish community, a lot of people migrated over to that area from Ireland. When I was able to sneak away, my runner was great and answered all my questions. I’m always curious and will always take the opportunity to escape when I can. With all the different things you can do in Dublin, I was able to go to Stephen’s Green. It was packed and full of people. People were everywhere drinking coffee on the grass, sitting in rounds playing music, and just enjoying the little sun that Ireland normally gets. With much history involved in the park, it’s no wonder why it’s one of the main places to go in Dublin.

Image result for big park in dublin ireland — Stephen’s Green

My runner was great and showed me all the buildings, the bridges, and all the neighborhoods in between. I had to ask him, “people are so proud of the Irish heritage, even in the states. Why is that?” He just said, “We are proud people, with a lot of history, but we are about a culture of who you know as well. That’s why we spread far and wide, we just know people!” Which in the end, totally makes sense, if you know anyone who is Irish in the states, they proudly say, “I’m Irish”.

Overall, I hope to make it back to the UK sooner rather than later.

All the luggage shoved in the back of the car

Life, Love, Music, Uncategorized

Artists

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Jaimee T

Hello from Casper, Wyoming. Not much to do here since there is one Uber in town and we are actually 20 minutes outside of Casper. Either way, happy for a day off.

Before this last run in South Dakota, I decided to fly out early to stay at my grandma’s house for a couple of days. It was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.

Just to give you an idea of my grandma’s house:

She lives out in the middle of woods in Custer, South Dakota. There are no city streets and you can see every star in the sky at night. It is truly a beautiful experience. Sometimes I think I’m in a scary movie it is so remote.

My grandma died on my birthday three and a half years ago. She was a great person and a talented artist. My grandma went to school for seven years with her masters in art education. She painted very well and she drew like it was real life figures. I cried when I walked into her house and all the paintings were still up. It is what she would have wanted. She didn’t paint for anyone else besides herself.

I know I write mostly about music artists, but I think it’s important to address all the different kinds of artists in the world. My grandma died a true artist and she was one of the best ones who went undiscovered.

Rest in Peace Grandma

Music, Uncategorized

Balloon Girl On Tour

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Jaimee T

I will say this. Getting back into the swing of touring again, is another roller coaster in itself. Trying to get the right amount of sleep, on top of remembering to eat and then, of course, remembering if you showered that day or the night before. Did I mention you still have to do your job?!

Do I think I want to do this for the rest of my life? I don’t know. It does take a special person to live on a tour bus a be a 20-year roadie. To give up your weekends completely. To live your life on the road on someone else’s schedule. To eat catering food three times a day and it may or may not be good food.

Woof

Are there perks to the job? Of course! Lots of perks. First off, you are working a show. I’ve spent PLENTY of money going to shows before I started working in the industry. Secondly, you do have time to have fun. Like I created Balloon Girl On Tour. It’s pretty much an inside joke between friends. But if you want to catch a glimpse of my adventures, feel free to follow on Instagram: @balloongirlontour