For every superstar artist who takes the stage at an arena or stadium show, there is a legion of backup musicians, dancers, sound engineers, producers and other crew members who make that show happen. And after every show, everyone needs a place to sleep.
That's where Rob DelliBovi As founder and CEO of RDB Hospitality, DelliBovi and his team coordinate travel logistics for major world tours by some of the world's biggest artists, including Miley Cyrus, Radiohead and Kaskade in the past. (Currently “under a ton of NDAs,” DelliBovi says he's unable to comment on current clients.)
“We move, on average, 50 to 100 people in 40 cities in 60 nights,” he says. “There are a million moving parts.”
While few fans ever consider the logistical aspects of touring, it's a critical part of the business that includes its share of high-stakes drama and over-the-top personalities. For RDB, 2024 saw its highest volume of business ever, along with its most diverse collection of clients. During peak season, the company has up to 40 tours on the road, with 5-10 tours in slower months.
The coordination process begins when RDB contracts with a tour manager, the person hired by the artist to handle the logistics — flights, buses, hotel reservations, etc. — to take a road tour. This tour manager presents the tour dates to DelliBovi, who then works with his team to find the details.
“We arrange extras like bus parking that most travelers would never handle,” he says. “We need hotels with an underground entrance so no one can see the talent, and everything has to be seamless and not intrusive for them.”
After starting the company in 2009 and making a major expansion in 2017, RDB Hospitality now has a staff of 25 working in tourism and related areas of the business, such as car servicing, and DelliBovi says overall business has doubled since the company added something few other companies offer: 24-hour support. Staff in Australia field situations arising in the middle of the night in the US and Europe. The weekend staff ensures that there is never a minute of the day when someone is not available to help with canceled flights or other situations.
“People can call at three in the morning or 2 p.m. Christmas at two in the morning, we have someone working.”
DelliBovi and his team usually have one to three months to make arrangements after receiving the tour schedule. First they coordinate transportation, determining which crew members will travel by bus, commercial flights and private jet, although not all famous musicians are as picky as one might think.
“I'm going to have the most famous person in the world text me directly saying, 'I love Delta,'” DelliBovi says. “Then someone who's not that famous, like a reality star, and I'm talking to their eighth assistant and they need a private jet.”
Once the transfer is scheduled, several different types of hotels are booked in each city. Crew members such as bus drivers, what DelliBovi calls the “D-party,” will stay at a hotel like the Courtyard by Marriott. The stage crew and other people on this level, known as “the C party”, will be staying at a Hilton or similar. The “B party” – usually backup musicians – will stay at a more luxurious hotel, while the A party, consisting of the artist and his main team, will stay at a hotel such as the Four Seasons or the Ritz Carlton. Selections in all four tiers are presented to the tour operator, who makes the final decisions, with RDB then booking hundreds of rooms on a credit card provided by the tour operator.
DelliBovi says one of the hardest parts of the job is when artists ask for same-day bookings if they've decided to take a last-minute one-off trip during breaks on a tour, for example.
“People will say, 'I'm going to Philadelphia right now, where do I live?' I say, 'I like the Four Seasons in Philadelphia,' so they'll go to the Four Seasons,” he explains. “Then they say, 'I think I like the Ritz better,' so I'll cancel the Four Seasons, and they'll pay a $25,000 penalty for doing that. Then they'll go to the Ritz and call and say, “I made a mistake. It's the Four Seasons that I like, so we'll cancel the Ritz and they'll go back to the Four Seasons. It's just part of the job.”
DelliBovi says it's a misconception that artists get rooms for free, particularly in luxury hotels that cater to an exclusive (and wealthy) clientele that includes politicians, executives and other members of the elite. These hotels charge more not only because they are luxurious, but because they are built specifically to serve the needs of famous people with features such as private entrances, secluded restaurant tables, and elevators that one can enter without going through a lobby and attracting unwanted attention. Attention.
Of course, some artists are harder to please than others.
“Punk bands are always the coolest,” says DelliBovi. “They're always like, 'Yeah man, whatever.' Most bands are much easier. The big big stars, of course, are more high-maintenance and more selective about where they want to be.”
He remembers losing sleep over things like whether an artist would like the types of cheeses on the cheese tray provided in his room, witnessing drug and alcohol-fueled debauchery, helping a boy band deal with 5,000 fans waiting outside the his hotel and provided hotels with photos of known stalkers as a security precaution. (“If you see any of these people anywhere near the hotel, call the police immediately,” advises hotel security when delivering these photos.) He even uses an alias when traveling with clients. Among his wildest requests was a celebrity who asked him to find someone to do a last minute colonic for them in their hotel room.
For this, he says, “I charged a very high fee.”
But when it comes to bad behavior on the street, the days of littering and throwing TVs off the balcony are largely over. “It's moved more into green juices and yoga and the health and wellness factor,” DelliBovi says. “There are more sober people on the road and more sober tour managers who are experts at keeping talent sober, too. It's a good thing.”
Generally, he says, A-list artists fall into two camps in terms of where they prefer to stay. Luxury travelers like a quiet hotel like the Four Seasons that's very “buttoned-down and neutral,” DelliBovi says, while lifestyle travelers want to be in the “cool, warm, fun hotel with a bar that's always on Page Six ».
Older customers prefer luxury while younger customers choose lifestyle, although, he says, “DJs usually want the peace and quiet of a luxury hotel. DJs make the most noise in the world for a living, so our DJ clients always tell us they need to be quiet.”
Meanwhile, A-parties on stadium tours usually include not just the artist, but massage therapists, life coaches, pilates instructors and nutritionists, along with their inner circle of assistants, managers and friends and boyfriends. For RDB, arena tours are the best type to book since stadium shows “are so big that they change the way a city operates,” making it harder to find the necessary accommodations.
Given the logistics involved in doing multiple tours on the road at once, the most important part of RDB's job is just making sure it's right. The team includes a staff member whose sole job is to check each reservation 72 hours in advance to ensure that bus parking spaces will be ready, the correct credit cards are registered and that the hotel manager will be waiting with a stack keys. The tired crew can go straight to their rooms.
“We can't make mistakes in this industry,” says DelliBovi. “If a superstar artist shows up at a hotel and their room isn't ready, it's over for us. we got fired.”
Part of this process also includes preparing the staff for who will show up. “Sometimes we say in hotels, 'This person is difficult, just put a person at the front desk with a very hard chin in their place that day, because they will take it.'
RDB's concierge service will arrange reservations at a restaurant of an artist's choice in any city, even (and especially) hard-to-get-in ones. Other aspects of the company include a car service and a corporate events division that leverages RDB's relationships with name-brand clients to retain them at private corporate gigs. (“Rob already knows their routing, so I can go to my corporate client and say, 'We can do this act here with minimal travel because they're already in the East Sea, as opposed to Rio de Janeiro,'” says (Elana Leaf , who heads RDB's events division.) RDB now has about 1,000 clients, half of whom are musicians and the other half consisting of sports teams, comedians and others.DelliBovi estimates his business has 25 global competitors.
DelliBovi entered this position after operating luxury hotels in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities. His job was to attract entertainment businesses, including music tours, to these hotels. That way, he got to know the tour managers, and from his perspective, “I didn't think it was being done efficiently,” he says. “There were too many times when the tour operator wouldn't send me the correct list of names or arrival time or tell me who was who, so we'd put an assistant in a suite and the talent in a regular room.”
He also saw a gap in the market, finding that while many established acts had a long-standing touring man, no one was catering to the new generation of artists.
“There weren't any young, fun people doing this,” he says. “We're a new team that's out there. Most of our competitors are not. We are backstage at concerts. We win and eat. We're a high-selling company, so we've grown that company just by networking within that community and understanding their needs.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/touring-travel-logistics-how-tours-come-together-rob-dellibovi-rdb-hospitality/