Anya Della Croce

HELVETIAROCKT: MUSICIANS IN CONVERSATION SEASON 3 ANYA DELLA CROCE Helvetiarockt is a Swiss national association raising awareness about gender inequality in the music industry while supporting promoting and connecting professional female inter non-binary and trans artists. Through its grassroots projects such as producing, DJing, band workshops and songwriting camps, it offers platforms for young people of all levels to dis-cover music and be part of an empowering community find out more on our website hel-vetiarockt.ch, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on social media. Musicians in Con-versation is sponsored by SUISA The Cooperative Society of Music authors and Publishers in Switzerland SUISA is celebrating its 100 year anniversary in 2023. [Music] hi everyone my name is Natalia Anderson and I'm a presenter content creator and DJ in this episode of musicians in conversation I speak with Anya della Croce who is a production manager and tour manager as well as the executive manager of the French speaking office of Petzi. We discuss the difference between the roles of production manager and tour manager the importance of grassroots venues for the music industry and what we can do to support them we also talk about the topical subject of ticketing systems causing extortionate prices for fans of music Anya answers an audience question and don't forget if you have a question simply send a direct message to Helvetiarockt on Instagram in the meantime here's my conversation with Anya hi this is Anya Della Croce and you’re listening to Musicians in Conversation backstage hello Anya thank you for joining me today on Helvetiarockt musicians and conversations thank you very much for having me with you so I'm going to start our interview with the question that I ask everyone and that is how did you get started on your musical Journey I used to work in a company that owned bars in Lausanne and within those bars one of them was called Le Bleu Lézard and there was a little cave behind like on under it which is called La Cave du Bleu Lézard which still exists today I think I've been there yeah prob-ably you did and so I was working as a bartender for many years and at some point there was a position opening in the service d’animation they called it so basically it was running all the events the cultural events the exposition exhibitions in the rest in the differ-ent restaurants and doing the booking for this place and I never did any booking I was I think I was 19 or something 19 or 20 something like that yeah and they actually hired me and I started to work for them and that's how I started in the music industry like very out of nowhere actually really and before that did you did you ever play any music or did you were you listening to a lot of music growing up I was listening to a lot of music growing up and I played the piano but never I mean yes I did play the piano for quite a few years but that was never my intention to become a musician but yeah I listened to a lot of mu-sic I went to a lot of shows I got involved in a few events working backstage or at bars I worked during four years at the Montreux Jazz Festival responsible at one of the bars there and the Miles Davis Hall back in the time so yeah I was quite interested I guess and pas-sionate that is brilliant I want to get into you as a production manager and a tour man-ager first of all what is the difference between a production manager and a tour manag-er well a production manager is basically in charge of advancing a tour which means like getting everything ready before the band goes on the road so it would be booking the transports booking the hotel talking to the technical teams preparing the riders technical sheets sometimes you also have in big tours you have like one technical production man-ager and one like artist production manager oh and what's the difference between that well if you're doing just technical you just basically going to talk about everything that comes to technical so it's backline rental or backline lights sounds of course obviously and if you are just doing production like hospitality production it's more about everything that goes around it so it would be hotels, transport, dinner, catering make sure everybody got the right information before you go on the road timings of course like how like what time do you arrive to a venue where do you park the bus, those kind of things yeah and the tour manager is on the road making sure everything goes accordingly and smoothly so it's actually pretty current that you do both sides of the job I was going to ask that so it could be the same person who's doing the production ahead of time and then that's the same person who's there on tour with a band or definitely and this is something I usually insist on because I prefer doing my own pre-production so I know where I'm walking and you know what I'm saying so yeah if someone else does the job for you I mean it works of course but it's sometimes not exactly how you would do it or how you would it also gives you a sense when you exchange emails or phones with people beforehand like okay how is it going to be is this one be maybe a little trickier because of parking spots for ex-ample or access to showers or whatever question you may have and if you don't do the advancing yourself sometimes I think it's a bit for me it's a bit frustrating absolutely and also everything changes I mean if you go on a long run things are moving because you could presumably be able to go a phone back to the production person touching manager who's done it the booking and say oh can you change that whilst you're already out on tour yeah but to me doesn't make any sense to have like an extra person working on this at some point it's always easier that you actually deal with it yourself yeah yeah yeah how did you get into that side of things well after I worked at Bleu Lezard I think I think I'd done it pretty much all I mean I've worked in a label I worked for a record company I did a press promotion I worked for the radio oh I did so many things the first time I went on tour it was I was working for Headstrong Music which was a label and an agency in Lau-sanne and my first gig was with Double Pact they don't even exist anymore do you know Double Pact no I don't it's the first bag what sort of music is it it's hip-hop oh wow and Stress used to be in that band and then he became Stress as a solo project artist so I think my first gigs were with them and with Sens Unik and then I came back to the road like a few years later when I was working with IMG where I started to do more production and touring with The Young Gods yeah yeah and I still worked with them today why yeah we're going to touch upon that I just want to sort of draw find the connection between you know you working in venues and then actually going on tour and production man-ager tour manager potentially different set of skills that you need to do these jobs like how did you transition from one thing to another I think I went back and forward from one and another but I think what's interesting if you start in the music industry and that's what I really learned and that was really impacting for me is that some jobs I'm really bad at it I'm a very bad seller for example I used to book bands and I don't know how to do that but then I booked bands for a festival so I was a buyer which is the opposite and I was quite okay in doing this so you know at some point once you do different things and you test different positions then you find yourself okay this one maybe I'm better and also I like it better and it's definitely different kind of skills but the production in itself still I mean it's still production and my favorite thing about it is like you have no there's no problem there's only solutions so you need to find solutions but it's not going to be the same kind of pro-duction if you work at a venue or a festival than if you're on the road but basically it's the same kind of job I would say what do you wish people knew about production the kind of work that goes into it it's very physically demanding it's very quite stressful I think but what is something that you wish people knew about what you're doing I think it's not only about production but about the entire industry at some point I remember having to con-vince my parents especially my mom like what I was doing was actually a job it's not just a hobby you know it's not like I'm going to shows and going to watch concerts and have some drinks and then you know of course sometimes we do have some drinks and have some fun that's also part of the job yeah but it's a job and so when you're on the road you can get really really tired and really busy because I mean at some point if I just need to give one example when you go to UK you need to get out of the bus when you go on the ferry then you got to go through customs then you get to get into London then you get to park the bus I think on the last tour we did in 2019 I woke up the team three times in one night oh my God and it's like at three o'clock in the morning and you need to get up and then and then you need to put on a show yeah so yeah it's not easy it's it can be really much fun but you also need to I think one thing I could say also I remember it was one artist that used to say that to me if you arrive with a smile on your face half of the job is done which I believe can be true yeah yeah but you don't always get a smile back though why because it's a lot of relationships there's a lot of people yeah because it takes a lot to make a tour happen you mentioned that you worked with the Young Gods or you're working with them their setup is huge well yes and no their setup is smaller than it used to be and the production is not I mean it's a big production because it's 10 people on the road for three people on stage but I mean I've welcomed some production in my previous jobs like as a booker at Fri-son or at for noise where there's like a truck or two trucks and three nightliners and 40 people on the road so there are much bigger Produc-tions yeah and but yeah it's a lot of people to handle and to look after I would say also because that's also my job as a tour manager is to make sure everybody's comfortable but I have to say I'm very lucky to be with that band because they are really really easy and nice to work with and we have a good team too so that helps a lot that's brilliant I love it because you've been working together for so many years so it's obvious that there's like a good relationship there and maybe a trust both ways they trusting you and you trusting them yeah it's a very male dominated industry definitely is it isn't it let's just let's just state the obvious how can we encourage more women more females, intersex, trans folk to take up this this role of what of what you're doing I've it's difficult to answer that ques-tion straight away what I can say is that for me it was really difficult in the beginning be-cause it is still a very very male industry even if there's more and more women in it but when I started up I mean people would look at me and say oh you're just 20 21 22 you're just a groupie you have no idea you don't know what you're doing you know and that happened and everything changed job or positions I had to prove myself again which I believe wouldn't be the case for my a man I don't know I mean I didn't experience that but I think it wasn't the case so I think you should you should just you know try and go for it and we're also trying at the moment I'm the only girl I'm the only woman on the road with the band but this is something we want to change and I'm trying to bring some other people on the road you know and I know some bands really want to have like equality want to have parity in their travel party yeah travel party is the amount of people that are on the road and I think it's important but it's also to me it shouldn't be a criteria mean-ing I mean you also pick the people for their skills so if you can have you know like the same skills with a woman go for the woman for sure absolutely I think I was talking to somebody recently they were saying that there's more schools now you know is it some-thing that you could before you would just learn on the job kind of thing but now there's maybe like higher education or some certain courses that people can do to maybe study production, production management and maybe even tour management but is that something that you would advise is that is that a way that some people can get in or is it like I don't know you've got to be in the trenches I don't think I would advise that but it's also because I think it's good that we get into education and I think it's very important but at the moment there are more and more and more programs but there are not nec-essarily more jobs so you also got to be careful not to train too many people that will not be able to get a job afterwards so I'm actually I know nothings but nothing about those programs so I wouldn't be the best person to advise but I think the best way to get in is to start you know volunteering in a venue or in a festival get involved ask to do an internship or just reach out yeah reach out to some band or some people you know or some people you know some band you like and just you know try to get in the team and maybe start trying to help with the merch or I don't really know it's just it's that's how I started actually so but yeah I learned on the road and what about for people who might be thinking oh I don't want to be the only woman on the road or I don't want to be the only you know person who's not a cisgender man on the road what would you say I would say there are more and more like there's not that much tour left with just one woman on the road but there still are some but then it's also a matter of how the other people treat you and if you are going on the road for like let's say four to six weeks you need the respect and you need the just yeah to be kind to each other and to look after each other but I would un-derstand it's not I mean sometimes I'm really fed up I'm in a bus with nine guys it's not al-ways easy yeah but it's also the way you learn how to toughen a bit yeah somehow what's one of your favorite memories what's a standout sort of memory of your of a tour situation that you you've been on oh my God that's a complicated one I have so many memories we laugh a lot and we talk a lot and we listen to a lot of music so I would say probably one of our blind test in the bus after a show or something like that you know or some parties or some dancing or some and the shows on the last tour in the set list there was a moment where I could actually see the audience flipped you know they would be I mean there's this one track that's kind of transcendent and very very tribal and you can really see the audience get into it and this is amazing when you when you know the set and you know it's gonna happen but it happens every night again and again yeah and you really see them going like crazy and you're like okay this is it we're in it now the show's gonna be good you know thank you If you are involved in music as a hobby profession or both sign up for free on the Helvetia-rockt music directory. 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For further informa-tion go to musicdirectory.ch [Music] what are some of the ways that a small band or artist can tour maybe without a tour manager for production manager there's a lot of bands that are touring with that and I don't think you need one I think you can really be fine by yourself it's just once it gets more International and I would say with a maybe bigger production you just need to be aware of the responsibilities and the tasks that you will have to handle you know and I would say if there is like a bus a driver someone for the merch like a team to you know manage yeah then it's good to have someone to do that but it's a lot of bands are tour-ing without small bands is there a stage is there like a sort of definable stage of the career of a artist or band where you can identify it's like this is now the time when you should start employing someone well I guess it's basically also the money like the kind of money you can put in it because having a team isn't it costs money you need to pay those people right so at some point you might want to say okay for this band maybe it's better to get a sound engineer because like we're going to start with a sound engineer and then maybe add a light engineer and you know I did a tour with a Canadian artist back in the days where it was just him and me on the road and the first question I asked to their manage-ment was like but do you not prefer to have someone to do the sound because it would be also good for him to have like a proper sound engineer not changing every night but for them it was more about dealing with the transports and the merchandising and hav-ing someone to look after him so they prefer to hire me than a sound engineer so I think it's really a question of priorities at some point yes and it's not just there's not just one way to do it really depends on the bands and on what you know what you expect and also the kind of budget you have yeah absolutely you are the executive manager of the French speaking office of Petzi can you explain what Petzi is first of all sure let's use the Swiss Fed-eration of non-profit live music venues and festivals we have two offices one in Zurich and one in Fribourg and we represent over 200 members I'm not sure exactly how many festi-vals is in clubs but it's both it's pretty I would say maybe 50 / 50. and I work for the French speaking part of Switzerland and yeah we what we do basically is we offer different ser-vices to the members there's a ticketing service a non-profit ticketing service and agenda online we organize trainings for on different subjects and we do a lot of advocacy and legal Consulting a little bit also when the legislation changes and of course in the past two years we had a lot of work to do on that line because the pandemic hit everybody pret-ty hard so we were really busy defending their interests can I go to the you mentioned the ticketing system I think right now I'm hearing a lot of discussion about the ticketing system getting the tickets to fans and we're talking about big venues we're talking about maybe I'll bleeped them out but Live Nation yeah Ticketmaster and Live Nation are dominating the industry and it is at is to the detriment really of the fans maybe the artists themselves I've read different viewpoints especially from where maybe the artists stand whether they're part of it whether they're getting the cut of this money and so whether it benefits the artists for these extortionate pricing that's happening as a result of the Monopoly but I suppose what are your thoughts on this system as it stands at the moment and perhaps what is Petzi doing in terms of the ticketing system that you have to make sure that it's available to fans I don't think I'm the best person to answer that because I'm not in charge of the ticketing service we have like a great team of volunteers like really working really hard on this part but for sure we do have an issue about the monopoly of those big companies that you named and it's not only in terms of ticketing they're also buying com-panies or festivals or venues that is right that's right yeah so this is this is to me honestly I say in the in the last months or years that I'm kind of happy not to be really a Booker anymore in this industry because when I see where it goes I'm like wow okay this is becoming really hard to keep fighting and to me what's most important is that we keep a diversity in what we can offer and if all the venues and festivals or big companies are bought by those you know huge companies worldwide it's not going to work we're not going to be able to you know continue and I think this in in this view it's really important for us to be able to offer this service it's a service that's only for the members of Petzi okay so for example it's not available to everyone yeah but most of our members now start really using it even some-times just this just our system even if we're not competitive in terms of giving money you were talking about kickbacks and stuff like it's a real messy thing that's going on and there's I'll share the link with you there's a John Oliver episode about Ticketmaster that is amazing seriously you have to watch this it's so funny but so truth and so sad at the same time but he really explains how it it's working and yeah this is this is a real issue and I think venues and artists and festivals should be careful and aware of this because at some point it's gonna be at the cost of the fans yeah yeah and we're already seeing that how I mean it's it could be potentially on like a legal level almost like a political level at this stage because I'm not sure how much even artists themselves can do when it comes to ticketing and getting their fans in when it's not physically going through them no I think you're right I think it's a political fight to start and it's actually starting to emerge in the US as well AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – US Politician) just posted something about this and so about the illegal like supposedly illegal merge of Live Nation Ticketmaster working to-gether that should have not been allowed so I think yeah we need to be careful and have a look in this and I know some countries or some associations in other countries are trying to have like in the UK for example they have tried to install an investment fund like a pipeline investment fund saying okay all the big artists that play big Stadium now they're starting in Grassroots music venues they started in a small on a small stage so those tickets that are so expensive should also if they're taking percentage for you know all the kind of kickbacks they could also kick back to the smaller venues to help them survive because they're facing issues and it's also a way to reinvest in the future artists in the future inde-pendent music absolutely and actually that leads me on to my question to you about the importance of Grassroots venues like what why are they so important well from many many different reasons I think but what we need to not talk about we only talk about like concerts and business and cultural aspects which is one thing but then there's a social aspect of it a lot of people start working in a venue and end up working in the govern-ment for culture you know like most of the people that are in place now they started as a volunteer in a small festival or small venue of their regions so this is one point maybe it's also where those the scene can meet the artist the in a large way not only the musicians they can just come and hang out and meet in those you know those small venues it's where musicians start their career I mean it's where you actually go to do your first show as a you know emerging band if you just you live for example in Bern you're gonna start like in a small club before maybe ending on a huge Festival stage you never know for those as-pects I think it's very important and also in a way of education like we were talking before this is also where people maybe have their first job you know like when you're a student you go and you just do like the door entrance or you work at the bar or you work at the security you know or at in the backstage or whatever and this is also how you get to know to start to know the I don't really like to call it the just the business but it's the industry because it is an industry absolutely what can people do to support these venues these grassroots venues what I mean perhaps other than like buying a ticket to go like is there anything that we can do to support I think yeah going and attending is one of them but I think one of the main challenge we have at the moment is on the volunteering part be-cause covid really messed it up somehow because people change their inhabitants you know they stayed home all the volunteering the volunteers that were involved in those venues some of them came back but some of them really you know found other interests or decided maybe it was time to switch to something else which is completely under-standable but yeah you should get in like get involved because they need the help like most of them are looking for volunteering volunteers or people just to not all of them are working just with volunteering you can also get you know small fees and stuff it's small posi-tions but yeah and talk about it you know support your local scene this is our slogan at the moment we have like a campaign going on and it's just to yeah so the people also go a bit more local I would say oh I love that as something really tangible that we could do especially when you said about volunteering and what I like about the act of volun-teering you're giving your time but you're also getting back so much from the act of just being in the environment and learning and seeing and for me like just even talking about your career progression I could see like a distinct line between like being somewhere be-ing in a venue being in in an industry or part of an industry and getting a career out of it you know that's some that's something I think is just such a wonderful thing like you could literally start off as a volunteer and end up anywhere in the industry sure and I think this is also where you start meeting people and the networking in this industry is really important so yeah just go for it, sure. Let's go back a bit to touring how can artists nowadays think about sustainability when they are going on tour it is quite a big machine I think well depending on the size of the band but the imprint is it is that what it's called or the footprint that people leave is can be quite significant so what should some artists think about well it's a big topic and it's a very difficult one I think what we know at the moment is as for a venue for example the worst is actually how people come to the venue it's the audience it's not necessarily the fact that you have a big light show or you know but it's really like sustainability is some-thing we try to address and it's a difficult one because if we would like to completely ad-dress it then we would say let's stop everything yeah yeah which we don't want to do so there's a few different ways of doing it of course when you go on the road with a tour bus it can be like okay well you know you're like 10 on the bus it's really not good for the plan-et or whatever but if you actually think about it and you say okay but if we wouldn't be in a bus we would be in hotels every night 10 rooms washing machine you know it's diffi-cult to really make a statement on this and say okay what's worse in the end of course maybe taking the train is better but taking the train with all your gear is sometimes com-plicated and it can be also very expensive and train is not necessarily more ecologically depending on how it runs so this is really something we don't know enough about to make like really a decision on okay how are we going to do this but there are more and more solutions coming up we try to have green riders for example what does that mean when you say green Riders well it means that you're not going to provide the band as a venue for example if the band is asking for this type of water that actually comes from the US you're going to say no we're gonna furnish you with local yeah and not with plastic bottles for example you can say let's reuse let's take our own towels and try to reuse them instead of asking every night different towels in the different venues you can say let's eat vegetarian then more and more venues are actually doing vegetarian menus only yeah there's a few things you can do and start to do but it's not only on the ecological part it's also on the social parts that it's important and I think to be more sustainable we also need to address the social part of it so there are a lot of things happening at the moment and we at Petzi work a lot together with Vert le Futur feature maybe you heard of them they just released a database I think a few days ago where you can find fact sheets that can give you inputs yeah on how and where to start but for sure I mean as long as bigger bands are using five trucks in huge Productions and flying over that's an issue yeah and one of the things that can be also like a good input is try to think a little more about the what we call we call exclusivities well the exclusivity on the show is that the management or the agent or the basically it's mostly the festival big festivals they want an exclusive show so they're gonna forbid the band to play in other cities or closer cities like six months before six months after I mean it's something that everybody does and I'm not saying we should stop it but just maybe rethink a little bit how we work with this because if there was for example a show in Zurich and then one in Lausanne probably the people living closer to Lausanne will go to Lausanne which is a smaller footprint Yeah you know going all across Switzerland to see one show but then Switzerland again is a small country and it's not the best example for that but I know some of the bigger Festival I was talking with a friend of mine just this weekend who just said well we book big electronic acts and most of them they jet you know big DJs they're like okay we jet from this show today as in pri-vate jet yes oh my God because they want to do three sets in one night because for them it's more you know yeah yeah more bankable yeah yeah and they start as a festi-val to say well we don't accept this so either you come and play our Festival either you just do whatever you want but we don't want you to jet to our Festival because we don't want to have this impact on the planet so I think it's also a start from big events to start to say okay let's share the backline for example let's try to have this when it's possible and it's in most case it is possible we were going to talk about diversity what does diversity mean to you in your industry so many things we are actually partner of the diversity roadmap so we worked on this together with Helvetiarockt then it's it's a good start for us I would say one thing that's really important is to have this in mind all the time as venues and festivals and on the road but again like I just said for now I'm basically the only women on the road but it doesn't mean it's not going to change and I actually have a friend coming to do merchandising with me on the next few you know a few gigs so it's and the band is actually also asking for that but it's all kind of diversity and I think we just need to be con-scious that you know it's important to work a lot on those kind of questions I think when you said that like just keeping it in mind it's something that it's one of those things when you constantly have it in mind it can inform decisions you sort of always check in with yourself is this something that aligns with my desire to be more diverse if it's yes or no like it's something it's just a small step actually that that can lead to a bigger change [Music] wait let's go to our audience question this one comes from @oddball my question is what kind of needs does a tour manager need to think about in terms of organization in terms of equipment in terms of maybe emotional support etc. when they're about to embark on a tour with an artist what kind of needs does a tour manager need to think about in terms of organization equipment emotional support yeah that's interesting right well again it also depends on the team you have I in my team have like a stage manager for exam-ple who is really in charge of every equipment that is concerning the stage but you al-ways want to have like a few sharpie’s (marker pens) with you that's for sure I actually have a production suitcase which is pink so it makes my team laugh a lot but I have a lot of things in there what is in there tell us what's inside well there's a lot of things there's al-ways some chocolate for sure there's a printer paper some Sharpies (marker pens), adapters some batteries also because you always need batteries yeah pretty much like a small office I would say and you will for sure need a computer and the phone of course some chargers because people are always borrowing some or losing them or forgetting them whatever I do have some essential oils as well I'm fine yeah some lavender for the stress some medicine and in terms of emotional supports I think that's a very interesting question I think you need you need sleep you need to sleep like whenever you can you need to drink a lot of water you need to have some friends that you can call in the mid-dle of the night probably but you usually don't have that much time so no I would say I would say one thing that's important is when you go on the road you set some rules also and just to make sure the rules are set for everyone yeah and that everybody is on the same page and then if not just make your points and I do that at least twice during the tour it's usually concerning the mess in the bus and it's usually the crew not necessarily the artist yeah so you know but it's just you know you just need to make sure you there for each other it also makes it easier for you afterwards because when you need some help or some you know to talk to someone they're also here for you so absolutely yeah I love this really kind of practical advice that you've given us it's so wonderful to have you know it's almost like guys get your you get your pen and paper and just like take notes because you gotta you can refer back to this it's so wonderful to have that kind of perspective from you maybe one thing I could add in term of it's probably not emotional but take a walk whenever you can also just get outside because if you if you're like on the long run you're going to be spending your time in the bus in the venue sometimes you have a day off so you can go to a museum or do something but just try to be healthy we try to be very healthy in the bus as well and so we like usually Cesar makes breakfast for us he made like a fruit salad or something so it's just this is also very important if you want to you know just survive the long run brilliant listen Anya thank you so much for your time that you spent with us today thank you for your knowledge thank you very much thank you very much for having me. If you want to join the Helvetiarockt community or find out more check out the website, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on social media. If you'd like to support Helve-tiarockt you can also become a member or donate and if you like what you heard today please share it with your friends. Helvetiarockt Musicians in Conversation is a concept by Natalia Anderson in collabora-tion with Helvetiarockt. It's presented and produced by Natalia Anderson music is by Jackie Brutsche and The Jackets.