Backstage Support Services


No one ever wants to be red carded for their behaviour while working. The Be/Don’t Be laminate is an initiative to remind us that positive behaviour is what we want in our workplace, be that a venue, festival, concert or tour. There is no room for negative behaviour but there is absolutely room for kindness and respect. Clip the laminate on to your lanyard and join the movement for a better  music workplace.

We encourage you to take a photo of you and your Be/Don’t Be laminate and share to your socials and tag @dontbeadick.official

A service specifically for workers in the live music industry to have someone to talk with, to help develop and maintain a healthy work life.

The Situation

A healthy workforce creates a healthy industry. The live music industry is a challenging and demanding place to work. It can be very rewarding and fulfilling but also very demanding and tough on one’s mental health and wellbeing. Load outs finishing at 2am after a day of travel, a load in, a show, load out and then doing it again day after day is just one example of the conditions in the live music industry.

Maintaining heathy relationships and family life often are difficult to get the balance right with the demands of gigs, festivals and touring. The fluctuating nature of the industry and the uncertainty of work has become even more difficult in the post-covid world.

The industry is changing and needs to change to be a healthy and sustainable place of work. Better care of its members, better, safer working conditions and an increase of  diversity is critical to a healthy industry. Advocacy and support services are needed to keep the positive change happening.

What is it?

A range of services to support the needs of individuals, groups, businesses and touring parties through one to one sessions, training workshops, staff care, onsite support at concerts/festivals and advocacy services.

What’s on offer?

1. Individual one-to-one session for confidential conversations, with an understanding, experienced listener. A sounding board to talk about ways to deal with industry specific situations/issues and your general wellbeing

Topics covered include:

  • Workload management 

  • Stress management

  • Burnout- dealing with and preventing

  • How to improve the touring/gigging and how you handle touring life stresses and demands

  • Healthy work boundaries and your wellbeing

  • Debriefing from a critical incident/ Trauma

  • Grief and loss

  • Conflict resolution

  • Mediation - when you need to work things out with colleagues, staff, tour members

2. Training sessions with groups, tour parties to educate and develop tools to deal with things like:

  • Team work

  • Workload management 

  • Stress management

  • Burnout- dealing with and preventing

  • How to improve the way you handle festival/touring life stresses and demands

  • Healthy work boundaries and your wellbeing

  • Debriefing from a critical incident/Trauma

  • Grief and Loss

  • Conflict resolution

  • Mediation- when you need to work things out with colleagues, staff, tour members

3. Assisting promoters, suppliers, organisations with staff care and wellbeing, support structures and initiatives in the workplace including event sites, venues and on tour.

This includes providing a mental health professional onsite during production and show days to help improve the mental health and wellbeing of the often invisible, behind the scenes workforce at concerts/festivals.

 The support is available for anyone onsite wanting to have a confidential one-to-one discussion - to talk about issues, challenges or things on their mind affecting their mental health and wellbeing. These being work related or personal.

The service also provides;

  • Referring individuals onto MusicHelps or specific specialised services.

  • A support person during onsite meetings.

  • Providing mediation between individuals or groups.

  • Post event follow up for individuals if required.

  • Supporting individuals having experienced traumatic incidents onsite.

  • In conjunction with the event managers, promoting positive work standards and behaviours.

  • Providing a dedicated space to have a break away from the busy work site and confidential chats away from others if requested.

  • Involvement in Health & Safety inductions and tool box meetings.

  • Assisting in making sure workers have access to the required facilities, water, food, resources to be able to do their job.

4. Advocacy work to improve structures, education, and standards in the live music industry.