Buy the ticket, enjoy the ride

By Brodie Lancaster‍

Alice Fraser makes the impossible happen every night of the week.

As the saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person. But we'd propose an edit: If you want something done perfectly on a major tour, ask Alice Fraser.

Whether she's managing travel and backstage operations at St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival or working as production coordinator on huge international runs with the likes of Tame Impala and The 1975, Alice does it all with a huge grin on her face.

Be prepared for anything

The list of responsibilities for a production coordinator is as long as a piece of string. Once Alice learned this job even existed, she realised her aptitude for juggling logistics and sticky situations would really come in handy.

"Pre-tour is where I'm designing how the whole tour is going to work, employing all the various contractors, working really closely with creative teams in the show development and with tour management."

Once a tour's going, Alice's to-do list might include:

• getting trucks into a venue
• organising food for after a show
• finding out if there are road closures
• monitoring any major events in town, security issues in the venue or health concerns in the crowd
• looking after immigration, bus maps, routings, border changes
• looking after day-to-day tour communications

"We're making sure that, for example, if we're travelling between Canada and the US and we're travelling with our own catering, we can't travel with some fruit and veg. Day-to-day, it's quite complex and anything can happen."

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Start local, think global

Alice had experience getting stuck in and figuring out how to fill her knowledge gaps when she was growing up in Adelaide, and keen to be involved in the city's very DIY music scene. After attending a music industry conference when she was studying journalism, PR, and law at uni, Alice's eyes were opened to what a career in live music might look like. She was so inspired she wound up deferring uni, enrolling in a music course and – the kicker – buying a tour van. Deep end: meet Alice.

"I drove my van 80,000 kilometres around Australia and just said to bands, 'Hire me and my van and I'll drive you.' And it was anything from 10-piece reggae bands to two-piece folk bands and everything in between. I drove them around Australia, bought a basic PA and lights, and taught myself how to do it."

While these days she's assisting tour managers on Billie Eilish and Travis Scott's massive tours, Alice credits it all to her willingness to sell merch or be "door girl" for her friends' gigs early on. "It's how you learn the landscape of what your local industry is like, whichever city you might be in. Even if that's regional, there are still possibilities that exist."

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Put yourself in front of the people you admire

Here's an inconclusive list of all the ways Alice's foresight and initiative got her somewhere incredible:

– After volunteering at Laneway Festival in Adelaide when she was younger, Alice took it upon herself to send the event organisers a report on the volunteers.
Cut to: years later, Alice bumped into one of Laneway's bosses at her office, who remembered "Alice from Adelaide". She'd go on to wrangle 400 staff and artists working six festivals in two countries in her job at Laneway Festival.

– Noticing a gap in her hometown scene, Alice started putting on intimate shows featuring emerging artists like Marlon Williams and Julia Jacklin. She shared a playlist of Aussie artists she loved with a radio host in London, who replied offering her a job.
"The scale of shows I ended up working on went from this infamous rock and roll venue called the Shacklewell Arms for 100 people through to 10,000 at Alexandra Palace. In the span of a year, I worked over 300 shows or something ridiculous."

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"I'll be forever grateful to younger Alice, because I just kept an open mind to possibilities."

"It sounds like there was a lot of circumstance, but the main thing in those early years was: I just did it. I saw the opportunity and wasn't afraid to try new things. Especially if you're early in the industry, trying all the different roles is one of the best parts because you also get to navigate what you like and what you don't like."

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The most common misconception of Alice's job: when you get the gig, you don't actually get to see the show.

‍"I think, on The 1975 tour recently, it took me almost 18 months to see a full song in a set. It was crazy. That's one of the tougher things because, ultimately, we're doing this job because we love music, and it's a bonus that our skillset fits. But missing it every night can be a good thing because it means that you're busy and you're doing your job."

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