With seemingly every act on the planet determined to tour in the coming 12 months, the freight and transport business has never been as busy. But with a genuine scarcity of vehicles, ships and aircraft, and the Covid hangover still hitting personnel numbers, the supply versus demand scenario is unprecedented. Gordon Masson learns how the sector is coping with some monumental challenges.
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t’s an oft-used phrase in 2022 that the live music business is packing three years’ worth of activity into one year, as postponed festivals and tours from the pandemic period concertina alongside new tours and events around the planet. But, while there will undoubtedly be certain artists and outings that become casualties of the resulting vastly oversaturated marketplace, on paper, at least, the windfall for the
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likes of contractors and suppliers should help make up for some of the darker, revenue-free days that Covid inflicted. In the freight and transport sector, the order books are full. Indeed, backlogs of requests remain seemingly permanently on reserve for those acts still scrambling to find solutions to get back out in front of their fans, while standard industry practices such as double drivers are all but non-existent for the foreseeable future such
is the dearth of trained and skilled people. “To be totally honest with you, everyone is working as hard as they ever have – but always with a smile on their faces, and no one is complaining,” reports Rock-it Global managing director Chris Palmer. “Because we had nearly two years without any kind of significant touring, everyone is just so hungry to get back to what we know and love best… 2022 is shaping up to be the busiest year I’ve known in over 20 years
