Listen To Your Heart

"Okay, so I’m guessing your first question is what bands are on the tour.” Amanda started. Bill had directed me to her office when I arrived this morning and after some quick introductions, we got down to business. I nodded and prepared my pen on my notepad. I was planning on taking as many notes as possible. I wanted to remember everything she told me. “Well. We just got The Maine on yesterday. Also, A Rocket to the Moon and Austin Gibbs have agreed to join us. And we’re are working on getting Mayday Parade on but that should be settled before I leave so don’t worry about having to do anything with that.” She finished.
“Oh, wow. That sounds like a great line-up.” I smiled.
“Well that’s the goal.” She smiled. “Alright. So basically your job is to make sure that everything goes smoothly. You are in charge of and responsible for everything. I’ve set up the bands already so your first order of business will be determining the dates, the cities, and the venues. Finding a venue on the date you need in the city you need is the hardest part. After all that is set, you need to start publicity. There is a team that handles publicity but you need to oversee them. At the same time you’re doing that, you need to get ticket sales set up. That isn’t very difficult. Then you have to make sure every band has transportation all set. It is their job to get it but you still need to check, because if they don’t have it, it’s your head. Now don’t think that you have to do all this on your own. You have a whole team in which you can delegate jobs to. I’ll introduce you to everyone soon. Once tour actually starts, that’s when your job really starts. You need to be on top of everything. Each band’s tour manager is going to be your best friend. Have a good relationship with them and your life will be so much easier. If you can tell them what you need, and they get their band to do it, you’ll be able to focus more on the other things that need to get done. Such as, finding a place for the merch tables, making sure all the equipment gets set up, making sure the lights work, making sure security is all set. You may have noticed there is just a lot of checking and making sure in the job description. If you wanted to sum up what your job is going to be in a few words it’d be: your job is to make sure everyone else is doing their job.” She finished, taking a deep breath from all the talking. I finished writing down everything she had told me and looked up at her. “Do you think you can handle this?” She asked.
“I believe I can.” I nodded. She smiled.
“Good. I think you can too. Now, for the next few days before I leave, I’ll be helping you with setting up the dates and venues so you can see how it’s done. But for right now, lets go meet the team that you’ll be working with for the next few months.” She said, getting up slowly, holding her pregnant belly as she went. I got up as well and let her lead me out of her office. We made our way through the hallway into a network of cubicles. We stopped at the doorway to one of the cubicles.
“AJ, can I borrow you for a minute.” Amanda asked the girl sitting in front of the computer inside. She turned around, saw us, and instantly smiled.
“Of course!” She said, standing up. “What’s up?” I could hear the accent in her voice. I think it was Australian.
“Well this is Jamie, the girl I was telling you about. She’ll be taking my place on this next tour. Jamie, this is AJ and she’ll pretty much be your second in command. She knows the ropes; so feel free to rely on her. I know she’s been a real life saver for me in the past.” Amanda introduced us.
“It’s nice to meet you AJ. I’m sure it’ll be great working with you.” I smiled and extended my hand to shake hers. She smiled as well and shook my hand.
“It’s nice to meet you as well Jamie. I’m excited for the next tour. It’ll be great.” She smiled and I nodded.
“Alright, well I’m going to introduce Jamie to the rest of the gang. We’ll come back later to start on some work.” Amanda said. AJ nodded and we said our goodbyes before moving on. We went into a large room with multiple desks filled with people.
“This is the rest of your team.” She told me. “Can I have your attention everyone?” She called through the room. Everyone looked up from their work. “Thank you. This is Jamie everyone, she’ll be replacing me in a few days when I go on maternity leave.” She started and began introducing me to everyone. “This is Sara,” She said pointing to a girl with brown hair and glasses, “And this is Morgan.” She pointed to the girl next to her who also had brown hair but had glasses and was very tall had strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes. “They are in charge of the AP table at every show so they’ll both be coming on tour with you.” She said. I smiled and waved at them as we walked past. “This is Dave and Shawn.” She continued, pointing to two fairly attractive guys. They smiled at me and I smiled back. “They organizes and oversee the lighting and equipment and all the other technical stuff while on tour, so you’ll be seeing them on tour as well.” She told me before moving on. “This is Giselle.” She said, moving on to a girl with brown hair and brown eyes. “She’ll be the photographer on tour.” Giselle gave me a shy smile and I smiled back as we moved on. “And finally, this is Rotem. She just moved here from Israel last month. She’ll be writing the articles about tour for the magazine.” Amanda finished. Rotem and I exchanged smiles before Amanda pulled me away and back to her office. We called AJ in and we all started to work on finding venues. At lunchtime, AJ invited me to go get a bite and get to know each other better, so we went to a small café nearby.
“So, AJ, I noticed your accent. Where are you from?” I asked.
“Australia.” She smiled.
“Oh, that’s cool. I’ve always wanted to go there. When did you come here?” I asked.
“About two years ago. I had always wanted to live in the States all my life, so after university, I moved here.” She said.
“Why’d you pick Arizona?” I asked.
“Well, I knew I wanted a place that was warm all year long like Australia. And I needed to secure a job before I moved here and AP said they would hire me so here I am. Have you lived in Arizona all your life?” She asked.
“I was born here and moved to Massachusetts when I was 14. But I moved back here last year because I missed it too much.” I explained. We continued to talk and get to know each other better. She was really nice and refreshingly friendly. I had a feeling we’d become good friends. After we ate, we headed back and continued to work with Amanda.