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How to Do the Technical Advancing of a Concert Without Losing Your Mind
October 9, 2026 · Claudio Gracian Carrozza
By Claudio Carrozza — Founder of RiderZero and keyboardist of Los Auténticos Decadentes, with 20+ years touring worldwide.
Technical advancing is the process of confirming, before you get to the venue, everything the band needs to play: sound, lights, backline, power, schedule and access. Done on time, show day is calm. Done late or half-done, you arrive to find the console isn't the one you asked for, two monitors are missing, and load-in was two hours earlier. Advancing is, basically, avoiding surprises on the one day you can't afford any.
Which documents go into advancing
Advancing isn't a single sheet: it's a package that goes back and forth between the band's crew and local production. The minimum you need in order:
| Document | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Tech rider | What the band needs from PA, consoles (FOH and monitors), mics and stands. |
| Input list | Channel by channel: instrument, mic/DI, and processing. |
| Stage plot | The stage map: positions, monitors/IEM and power drops. |
| Backline | What the band carries and what it rents locally (amps, drums, keys). |
| Power | Electrical requirements, voltage and phases — critical on international tours. |
| Hospitality rider | Catering, dressing rooms, towels, water — technical isn't only sound. |
The back-and-forth with local production
Advancing doesn't end when you send the rider: it starts there. Local production replies with what they can cover, what they can't, and what needs to be rented. That exchange — email, phone, WhatsApp — is where data gets lost. Someone confirms on the phone that they'll get the two extra monitors, and nobody writes it down. Two weeks later, nobody remembers.
The golden rule: everything confirmed verbally has to be written somewhere the whole team can see. An agreement that lives only in one person's head doesn't exist on show day.
Minimum checklist before you travel
- Tech rider and input list sent and confirmed by local production.
- Stage plot agreed, with monitor/IEM positions.
- Rental backline confirmed in writing (make and model, not "a keyboard").
- Real load-in, soundcheck, doors and curfew times — not the "tentative" ones.
- Direct contacts for FOH, monitors and production, with phone numbers.
- Power requirements validated for the destination country.
- Crew access and credentials defined.
How to keep it from getting lost
The enemy of advancing is scatter: the rider in an email, the input list in a Drive, the schedule in an old PDF, and the backline confirmation in a chat. When that information lives in five different places, the truth becomes impossible to find on the day you need it.
The fix is to centralize: each show should have its technical documents, production schedule and contacts in one place, reachable from a phone and also offline. In RiderZero every event keeps its production schedule (load-in, line check, soundcheck, set change, show, curfew), its technical requirements and its contacts together, and the crew sees them in real time. If a time changes during advancing, it updates for everyone — no stale versions floating around.
See how a show's production schedule and technical info look live: go to riderzero.live and click "View demo". No account needed — you'll explore a sample tour with all production times and data loaded in.