Does anyone know how one would go backstage after a concert?

[wryter2000]

I'm writing a book...always writing a book. I want my protagonist to talk to an opera star after a performance. I assume a singer's friends can get backstage to see her/him after a performance. Is that true? If so, how would the friend do that? I assume there'd be a list of people who can be admitted.

I guess I can have my protagonist wait outside the stage door until the singer emerges, but it would be easier if she can knock on his dressing room door.

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Going backstage for a meet & greet is different that direct access to a restricted performer.

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While you could work at the venue, work security, know the venue operator or other people in the facility who might work to arrange contact, it probably won't be in private and would probably only be for a fleeting moment. A lot of diva-like stars are pretty exclusive.

Backstage people for venues often go though background checks due to possible liability.

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[wryter2000]

3. Thanks

She has another career, but she could know someone who works backstage. That would work if nothing else does.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. What my kids do to meet bands is to stand out in the back lot and wait an hour for them to come out.

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By that time, there might be about a dozen or so diehards remaining and the band members will actually spend 10-15 minutes or more meeting each one of them and chatting, answering all kinds of questions. They stand by the back stairs and wait for the people to go to their tour bus.

I was at a David Byrne's 'American Utopia' performance off-Broadway last year, right before the pandemic hit, and there was more security in that place than at the Newark Liberty Airport.
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[wryter2000]

8. That is a possibility, too

Do really popular bands do that?

I know we Tower of Power crazy fans wait for the band to come out. Some of them are very friendly. Others are approachable, and one is really shy and doesn't interact much with fans. I was astonished when he came over and spoke to me one evening.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Bigger performers have fenced in areas to arrive & disembark. A lot changed in the past 20 years.

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Too many unstable people that bigger celebs have to take precautions.

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[lapucelle]

2. I was once invited backstage when I simply approached a guard to ask a question.

I didn't look like one of the concert goers due to my age. I was the concert mom with tweener kids at a boy band concert. I think the guard thought I was one of the band member's mom or aunt.

It was a small venue, so that probably helped, but it was an important one in NYC where I would have thought that the guards would be sharper. I was looking for a ladies' room.

On the way home, all the kids were sooooooooo jealous.



You could have your protagonist dressed a bit differently than the typical audience member, have him approach the guard with "Excuse me, I have a question", and try to proceed from there.

[wryter2000]

4. Interesting

I would have thought it would be much more difficult. My singer is very elusive, btw. He wouldn't have any visitors, but I'd have her sneak in with visitors for one of the other singers.

I always get a good answer on DU.

[OilemFirchen]

5. Easiest way to sneak backstage with nobody noticing:

Be the drummer.

[wryter2000]

9. LOL

I guess with opera, it would be the timpanist.

[Ocelot II]

11. Unless he spontaneously combusts first.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Could win a chance in some sort of contest, like a radio contest, or a sweepstakes type thing (nt)

[wryter2000]

10. Thanks

This particular singer would never sign up for that. He avoids fans at all costs because he's shy.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. The concert promoter & his agent team up to talk him into it because it will sell lots of tickets

It'll be a 'just this one time' type of thing

[Warped_and_Wefty]

14. Perhaps mistaken idenity

And chaos leads your protagonist knocking at the door... depending on the protagonist's personality she or he takes a chance and knocks on the door. I dunno lol but I certainly wish you the best of luck and adventure!

[wryter2000]

15. Thanks

Interesting idea. I’ll let it roll around in my brain. I have several ideas now.

I will probably write this. I’ve had a bunch of romance novels published. I hope this one sees the light of day.

[Patterson]

16. When I played, you would call the management and go through them.

I don't know exactly what they did, but you would get a pass or on a list.

[fierywoman]

17. I worked for 7 years in an Italian opera house orchestra.

There are several ways of getting backstage, the most obvious being: from the front of the house to the backstage area, there's usually a door -- in my theater it was in the outer hallway, to the right of the stage, just open the door and you're on the stage, and from there you could get to the dressing rooms.
During a rehearsal, we could bring people in with the permission of either the head of the theater (...sigh...) or the conductor (much easier, since there was already a working relationship.)
Some theaters are stricter than others -- as someone above noted, it's about liability.
That said, my old high school buddy got into a theater in Paris where my (Italian) orchestra was rehearsing by having a camera around his neck and muttering (and acting like he belonged there), "Italian orchestra!"
Chutzpah is useful at times like these!

[DFW]

18. If real-life experience will help:

My Brother-in-Law works backstage on Broadway, has for years. His show was Mamma Mia for a long time. But those guys ALL know each other. He not only got us backstage tours at MM, but also many other NY shows. He even had a friend give us a backstage tour in L.A. when Jason Alexander and Nathan Lane were the leads in "The Producers."

What you do is go to the stage door outside the theater (NOT the entrance inside, where bouncers will bar the way), and knock. Someone there should have your name and your contact inside. The door person will ask you to wait while your contact person is sought. They come to the door, verify you, and you go in with them. Depending on the importance of the production, you may or may not be given a theater-specific temporary ID, that you hand in when you leave. You are generally expected not to leave your contact's side, although if you sneak off to a certain person's dressing room (if they even have their own!) unnoticed, you're not caught until you're caught. But those places are narrow and cramped. You REALLY have to know where you're going if you expect to find someone specific. Your fictional opera-diva-seeker will have to somehow have his backstage tour set, and a map of the backstage area handy when he gets in.

[wryter2000]

22. Thank you

That's exactly the sort of thing I needed to know.

I think I'm going to bribe a "contact." That person will leave her name with the guard, so he's expecting her. Then, contact will come and get her. She'll ditch the contact somehow and knock on the singer's dressing room drawer. This singer has the stature to have his own dressing room. She won't need much time because he'll listen to the first few sentences of her spiel, tell her "no," and close the door. Then her contact finds her and ushers her outside whether she wants to go or not.

[DFW]

24. It's the kind of detail that makes a story line accessible to a reader

When I wrote my book, I spent quite an amount of time checking on little details like that, so that anyone who knew more about a certain detail than I ever did would find the passage plausible, nod, and keep on reading. Little details like what things cost in rural France in the 1860s, the layout of Monticello in Jefferson's time, what expressions were in use when (I was warned not to use the word "technology" in an 18th century conversation, as it didn't become common until the mid 19th century), and what the architectural history of Washington, DC was. All this was stuff I had to get right to help make a crazy yarn become just a little more believable. I even used one of Thom Hartmann's books on Jefferson to help me make conversations with him a little more believable, and Thom mentioned my naming him in the credits once on his show. Always give credit where credit is due!

[wryter2000]

25. I generally find

That it's the details you don't think of that end up putting you in trouble. I read an excellent romance set in a mailorder brides wagon train. All the details about what they'd see and do an need appeared to be spot on. But she used late 20th century psychological constructs, such as one character "undermining" another's "authority." Mostly, it made me chuckle, and I finished the book.

[DFW]

26. I took great pains to avoid exactly that kind of error.

The only one in my book that I got called on afterward was putting a basement in a house in Sherman Oaks, California. Apparently, they don't have basements there. Who knew?

[wryter2000]

27. Basements are rare in CA

I lived in one house that had one. It was a large 3br, 1.5 bath. You might have gotten away with it if a character remarked, "Oh, you have a basement."

[DFW]

28. NOW you tell me!! n/t

[kellytore]

19. I don't know if it would work today

but back in the late 70's and 80's my girlfriend and I would get backstage to many concerts. She was very attractive and would hang out by the stage door waiting for a male with a press pass to leave. She would then go and make conversations with him and then eventually ask for their pass. It worked almost every time. Jackson Browne was my favorite artist to meet.

[Wolf Frankula]

20. In my limited experience, you have to be invited.

Or go backstage with the one who arranged the concert. You can also go backstage if you have a badge, or if you are a process server with a warrant.

Wolf

[Jim G.]

21. Send A Bouquet Of Roses Or Or A Bottle Of Champagne With A Note Giving A Reason To Meet...

[wryter2000]

23. Thanks so much to everyone

So many great ideas. I gather things vary from theatre to theatre, so if I put together something plausible, it should work.

[Mr.Bill]

29. I don't know if this would fit your narrative, but

years ago I read a story in the entertainment section of the Sunday paper about how a guy got backstage at a Bruce Springstien concert. He had a buddy who was a Coca-Cola driver. he got the uniform from him, then went and bought enough cases of Coke products to fill a hand truck.

He just wheeled up to the back door and told the guard he was here to service the Coke machine. He waved him right in then the guy ditched the hand truck and ducked into a bathroom to change into clothes he had hidden in one of the Coke cases. I don't remember many more details but he said something about the only problem was he did not have a backstage pass, so he had to keep moving around. I don't think he met Bruce, but that wasn't his intention. He just wanted to write a story about what goes on backstage at a major rock concert.

Or how about if your character tries hard to get in but can't, then just by chance runs into the star he wants to meet. Maybe in a hotel elevator. That actually happened to me with the J Geils Band in San Francisco.

[wryter2000]

30. That's adorable

It would be funny if my heroine were to do something like that. I'll think about it.