If you like long hours, an unpredictable work schedule, working in a different environment every day, and short breaks between work shifts, then you too should be freelance or "on the bounce" as a theater tech or stagehand.
  After more than 14 years setting up and tearing down shows the luster has worn off.
Work can start any time.
  That really means 24 hours a day seven days a week.
  If the show schedule is busy, like it normally is in Las Vegas, then less than eight hours from the end of one show to the start of the next, or "a short turnaround" is the norm.
  With so many venues around town a busy stagehand can work more than one venue the same day and under radically different circumstances.
  A carpeted ballroom with a drop ceiling is nothing like a theatre with a wooden stage.
  The theater has very little in common with a concrete floored arena that can host a variety of sports and music shows.
  A musical has a whole different set of challenges than those presented by a pop music show.
  Rodeo's, ice shows, and corporate meetings can present wildly varied work conditions.
    Weekends and holidays are non-existent for stagehands or techs.
  Every time the average person gets time off they  want to enjoy themselves.
  Many do that by going to shows.
  Days off can be non-existent too.
  Corporate groups come into the ballrooms and convention centers for shows that run during normal business hours.
  So Monday through Friday eight am to five pm is packed with work usually followed by after business hours shows in the theaters and arenas.
  A mobile phone is the lifeline for a "bounce" stagehand.
  If an employer wants someone on short notice any stagehand not immediately available by phone misses out on a potentially valuable gig.
  It's hard to have a private life when the phone can ring and end your plans on a moments notice.
  So why work in entertainment with all of the down sides?  Stage hands tend to be people who hate cubicles, hate suits and ties, and want to make extremely good wages without having to have extreme amounts of education and training.
  Rebel and mercenary are two terms frequently associated with entertainment techs.
The downsides are the trade off for making big money.
  The best paid stagehands take the downsides a step further by going on tour.
  They get all of the other stresses, plus they get to live on a tour bus, and only have room for three duffle bags of personal stuff.
  This part of the job equates to being deployed with a submarine in one of the world's navies.
  Being gone from several weeks to many months setting up and tearing down in a different venue each day is the most difficult part for touring stagehands.
  Averaging six hours a day sleep and doing nothing but work day in and day out reduces the number of people who tour to a small clique of the most indestructible stagehands.
  Getting to see the world and being in on parts of a show most people don't know exist has its allure, and combines with the rest of the stagehands lifestyle to make it a business with which most techs have a love hate relationship.
  They love it so much they wouldn't do anything else, but at the same time they hate it so much that they snivel constantly.
   Copyright Paul Weiss 2009