Preparations for the next leg of the radiohead tour have been occupying my time somewhat, hence the delay in posting this update.

Planning for a tour is done many months in advance, I saw the first list of proposed dates in August 2007, versions entering double figures by the time everything was confirmed. A band such as radiohead have the luxury to choose their touring schedule based on ideals, rather than the practical, but my role at that stage of the planning is to apply those ideals and verify schedules and transport plans will work, as well as checking that venues will be able to accommodate the show.

With carbon reduction firmly on the agenda, travelling to far flung corners for the globe was always going to be a difficult thing to justify. However, turning back to the report that identified the detrimental effect of the fans travel, it was agreed to press ahead with the bands touring plan.

According the goals of the business, we strive to afford the ticket buying public the same high standard of show around the world. For this to happen, the band and their technicians require the tools of their trade, from a specific guitar and drum kit, the chef's knives to the correct microphone, audio desk and speaker selection.

Standardisation in speaker technology allows us to rent PA systems in each country, but the uniqueness of the band's sound and the groundbreaking application of LED lighting dictates that we have a lot of our own specific equipment. Traditionally, we would have air freighted 20,000kg gear around the world. For this tour, we set ourselves a challenge of a "no air freight policy".

This is trickier that you may think. Agreeing that we need to have our own equipment with us for all the shows, we started planning the tour around shipping lines and road routes, with the schedule having suitable gaps for the gear to be transferred by boat between continents. The business model was not working. Allowing around 3 weeks sailing time between the UK and USA, and USA and Japan, the wage bill and rental of hired equipment soon mounted up. Alternative plans were required.

Did we need to take our equipment with us at all? Could we have a European system and an American system? This proved more cost effective, eliminating the need to wait for equipment to arrive. The team set about locating and building two identical backline and lighting systems. Audio equipment has been rented locally. Some items were already owned by the band, some easy to source. A rareness of certain items required the touring set up to be modified. Although compromise was acceptable, 12 guitars could not be duplicated but the result of the project was the equipment that we need to air freight is now less than 1,000kg!


Next stop is Japan, a surprisingly long way from anywhere. Although a rich country steeped in tradition and technological innovation,  availability of entertainment technology remains limited. It took 4 weeks to build a complete set of lighting and band equipment, with our Japanese trip consisting of 6 shows at 3 venues in 2 cities over 10 days, one finds it hard to justify the expense of setting up a local system just for this part of the world.

Which raises the question, how far do you go? With the seven continents of the world, do you set up 7 systems? (although I'm not sure the penguins of Antarctica are Radiohead fans). Economically, two seems to be the magic number for our situation. Using sea freight and some careful planning, the cost of the second system is offset by the savings made on not using air freight. With fuel and air travel costs rising by the day a sea container can be as low as 20% of air freight.

To the boats it was. Four 45ft sea containers were loaded in Santa Barbara, complete with ample silica gel. They will take 22 days to arrive, then 22 days to return the gear to its home base of America.

I have my fingers crossed for calm waters.

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