Giggs Podcast

The Rock-It Company has been the logistics engine behind the world's largest music tours for 47 years. Every stage you've ever stood in front of — odds are, they got it there. This summer, they're doing that and something else: serving as the official logistics partner for the FIFA World Cup 2026 , the largest sporting event in world history, spanning three countries, 16 host cities...

For the 20th annual CMA Touring Awards, Giggs went backstage at The Pinnacle in Nashville and talked to over 20 winners, nominees, and industry leaders across one night. We open with outgoing CMA CEO Sarah Trahern — her 13th and final Touring Awards — and SVP of Industry Relations Tiffany Kerns , on peer recognition, what this event means to the touring community, and what they're building fo...

Alex McNamara is a technical director, welder, rigger, and Yale School of Drama graduate who installed the turntable for the original Hamilton production, led 600 workers on a $300 million Soundstorm build in Saudi Arabia, and built her career one job site at a time as one of the only women in the room. She's also the founder of Built Pretty — which she started a year ago on a forklift at an...

Ryan Maag started as a backup dancer on the Weird Al Yankovic tour in 1998 and figured out fast that the person choreographing makes more than the person performing. Twenty-something years later, he's been creative director for NFL halftime shows on two continents, the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and the D-Day ceremonies in Normandy, France — shaking hands with five-star generals and th...

Neville Shende — known on the road as NELVIS — has spent more than 40 years in the concert touring world. He started as a guitarist and guitar tech in Winnipeg, stumbled into bus driving on a 9/11-disrupted Aerosmith run, and spent the next four decades driving for some of the most iconic artists in the world: Prince, Madonna, Alicia Keys, Black Sabbath, Shakira, Ronnie James Dio, Papa Roach, Dist...

Mandi Naylor has spent over a decade running food and beverage at some of the biggest events in the country — the NFL Draft, the Super Bowl, Bonnaroo, ACL, Lollapalooza, CMA Fest, KAABOO, and the NASCAR Chicago Street Race. She's managed catering for commissioners, artists, and crews of thousands. Now she leads events for the Robertson County Chamber of Commerce in Tennessee. This conversatio...

We're bringing back one of the most practical conversations from the Giggs archive. Nikki Sanz sits down with Rachael Bronstein , founder of Life's Jam — a financial coaching service built specifically for the touring and live events community. 70% of music industry professionals are freelancers. Just under half report feeling financially anxious or stressed. Rachael has spent the last f...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, Brandon "Fitz" Fitzgerald is back by popular demand after his previous episode (#19) became one of the most-DM'd conversations we've ever put out. One year later, Fitz comes back with a year on the road that includes Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter, Post Malone's world tour, Playboi Carti, and a set up in New Orleans during the city's bigges...

We're bringing back one of the most popular conversations from the Giggs archive. Nikki Sanz sits down with Marty Hom — a true legend of the touring world with 40+ years of experience tour managing The Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac, Barbra Streisand, Stevie Nicks, Shakira, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, Van Halen, Olivia Rodrigo, Lionel Richie, and more. Marty started with Bill Withers...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, Nikki Sanz sits down with Doug Wilson — long-time tour manager and Director of Touring — for a grounded, honest look at what 20 years on the road teaches you. Doug's path started with a chance encounter with a tour manager in catering in Glasgow, Scotland. He bought a Sprinter van, converted it with his dad, and four months later was on his first US tour. From th...

Recorded in Nashville, TN, this special docuseries episode of The Giggs Podcast steps inside Kingfisher Production Studio , the new virtual production offering from LEO Events . Nikki Sanz walks through the space and talks with the team behind it to see how virtual worlds are built, lit, filmed, and finished. This episode is worth your time if you work in production, post, creative, live events, o...

What does real support for music professionals actually look like when the gigs stop, the bills pile up, or the stress gets too heavy? In this episode, Nikki Sanz sits down with Theresa Wolters , Executive Director of MusiCares , to talk about the health, financial, and emergency realities facing people across the music industry. They get into the gap between how glamorous the industry can look fr...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, this episode features Patrick Ledwith , Managing Director of North America for ES Global , reflecting on a career that spans nearly four decades across touring, staging, and large-scale live production. Patrick takes Nikki Sanz from his start as a 17-year-old stagehand in London to building stages on U2’s Joshua Tree run, managing major tours, and eventually stepping...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, this episode features Kyana White , a tour manager and production manager whose path into touring did not start on a bus. It started in TV, in internships, in low-paid PA work, and in learning how major productions actually come together behind the scenes. Kyana walks Nikki Sanz through the real story: how she went from the WME mailroom and award show production into...

Behind every tour is a whole other job happening offstage: parenting, schedules, safety, emotions, and the quiet pressure of “don’t make this harder for them.” In this episode, Nikki Sanz talks with Rachel Smith and Rhyan Shirley , founders of Stage Wives —a support community built for women navigating life while their partners work in the touring industry. They share what this lifestyle can do to...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, this episode features Suzi Meyer , Chief of Staff, in a candid conversation about workforce development, burnout, leadership, and the future of live events. If you care about crew culture, retention, or building a sustainable career in this industry, this one hits home. Suzi breaks down what COVID exposed, why respectful leadership is outperforming pay in recent polli...

Recorded live at Rock Lititz, Nikki Sanz sits down with touring production manager, Jesse Sandler , for a behind-the-scenes look at how a touring career actually gets built—one cosign, one good attitude, and one “figure it out” moment at a time. Jesse walks through his path from an early runner/production assistant role to touring internationally as an audio tech, and eventually stepping into the...

Recorded live from Rock Lititz, Nikki Sanz sits down with Butch Allen, VP of Global Business Development at TAIT, and a touring veteran who’s done nearly every job on the road (“everything but audio”). Butch breaks down what actually moves your career forward in live events: learning fast, contributing solutions, and being someone people want in the “fishbowl” when the pressure is high and the clo...

Recorded live from Rock Lititz in Lititz, Pennsylvania, host Nikki Sanz sits down with Dr. Chayim Newman and Zack Borer —the co-founders of Amber Health —to talk about what it really takes to support touring crews and live event professionals when the days are long, the pressure is constant, and the margin for error is basically zero. This conversation goes beyond “mental health awareness” and int...

Live video direction isn’t just calling shots—it’s reading the room, listening to the music, and trusting your crew to move with it . Recorded live from Rock Lititz, Nikki sits down with Nicholas Weldon “nicDUB”, a legacy roadie with over two decades of experience as a live video director. nicDUB shares how growing up around touring shaped him early, why he fell in love with the visual side of mus...

Ask Giggs is back, and this one is for anyone who’s ever said, “I’m in shape… but I’m not in tour shape.” In Ask Giggs #8, Nikki answers community questions about managing the physical toll of touring, building real stamina, and staying mentally steady when your body is cooked, but the show still has to go on. She breaks down why “touring shape” is its own category (and why so much of it is mental...

In this special docuseries-style episode, we’re taking you inside the construction of the brand new Rock Nashville—the highly anticipated live entertainment campus from the team behind Rock Lititz. Nikki Sanz gets a sneak preview of the build, explores what the campus is designed to solve for touring crews, and sits down with key people helping shape the vision, the community experience, and the f...

Allison Noah is a rising star in the industry — one of the few women in her role as Stage Manager, and a standout leader in the next generation of road crews. She got her start at Grammy-winning label Sono Luminus, where she did everything from engineering to photography. After moving to Nashville, she worked briefly at City Winery — then hit the road in 2021 on a small country tour, juggling near...

Sooner Rae Routhier is a renowned Principal Designer who is a 2X Parnelli, Live Design Achievement, Live Production Summit Pinnacle, and multi Top Dog award-winning designer. Her designs can be seen on Jimmy Fallon, The AMA’s, The Ellen Show, The Voice, and The Billboard Music Awards. She has crafted iconic shows for artists such as Coldplay, Panic at the Disco, The Weeknd, KISS, Imagine Dragons,...

We’re back with another Ask Giggs segment, where host Nikki Sanz answers real questions from the Giggs community. In this episode, we get honest about one of the hardest parts of working in live events: what the job asks of your personal life, and how to build something sustainable without losing the people you love. From “you can’t say no yet” to “you should be able to go to a funeral,” Nikki wal...