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Read more →What is a technical rider?
A technical rider (or tech rider) is the document you send to a venue or production company that tells them what you need to put on your show. It covers the stage, the sound, the lights, the video and the power, plus what you will bring yourself.
It is not a wish list and it is not a contract on its own. It is the start of a conversation with the venue’s technical team, so that by the time you arrive, the stage is ready and nobody is surprised.
Who needs one?
- Bands and musicians, from pub gigs to festivals.
- Speakers and presenters who need specific mics, confidence monitors or playback.
- Touring shows and theatre productions.
- Corporate event producers bringing their own kit into a venue.
- Live streaming crews who need network, power and space at someone else’s venue.
What goes in a tech rider
Keep it short and organised. Two to four pages is plenty for most acts.
1. Contacts and summary
Your technical contact’s name, phone and email at the top. Then a two or three line summary: how many performers, what kind of show, how long the set is, and whether you are bringing your own engineer.
2. Stage plot
A one-page top-down drawing of the stage with every performer, instrument, mic, monitor and power drop. See our guide on how to make a stage plot.
3. Input list
Every audio source and the channel it needs, with mic or DI, stand and phantom power. See how to make an input list.
4. Monitors
How many mixes, wedges or in-ears, and who each mix is for. Number them to match the stage plot.
5. Backline
What you need the venue to provide (drum kit, bass amp, keyboard stand) and what you are bringing. Be specific about anything that matters to you, and say “or similar” where it does not.
6. Power
Where you need power on stage and roughly how much. Most bands only need a few standard outlets, but video, lighting and broadcast kit can need dedicated circuits. Our free power consumption calculator adds up your gear and tells you how many circuits to ask for.
7. Video and streaming
If you are bringing cameras, a switcher or streaming kit, say what you need from the venue: a network connection and its upload speed, screen inputs and their format (HDMI, SDI), and somewhere to set up. A simple AV wiring diagram makes this clear in seconds. For streams, the streaming bitrate calculator tells you what upload speed to ask for.
8. Lighting
For most acts, a sentence or two is enough: “general stage wash, no strobes” or “we bring our own operator and a show file.” Larger productions attach a lighting plot.
9. Schedule
Load in, soundcheck, doors, set time, load out. Even if the venue sets these, putting your preferred times in the rider starts the conversation.
Tips so the venue actually reads it
- Put the important things first. Stage plot and input list near the top. Hospitality, if you include it at all, at the end or in a separate document.
- Be realistic. Asking for kit the venue clearly does not have makes them skip the rest. Mark what is essential and what is flexible.
- Send a PDF, not a document full of comments. One clean file, dated and with a version number.
- Keep it up to date. A rider listing a member who left last year tells the venue nobody checks it.
- Follow up. Email the venue’s technical contact a week before and ask if anything in the rider is a problem. That one email prevents most day-of-show surprises.
Build it from one plan
The stage plot, input list, power and video parts of a rider all describe the same setup. In H2R Gear you can draw the stage with the free drawing tools, add the real gear and the cables between it, and get the patch list and packlist from the same plan. Export the plan as a PDF for your rider, and upload the finished rider to the project so it lives with everything else for that show.
When the line-up or the setup changes, update the plan once and re-export.