Road manager

In the music industry, a road manager is a person who works with small to mid-sized tours (in terms of personnel involved, based on size of the production). Job responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

Road managers can be confused with tour managers. Generally speaking, though, tour managers work with upper-mid to large scale tours and are often granted a much greater degree of authority in tour operations.

Road crew

The road crew (or roadies) are the technicians or support personnel who travel with a band on tour, usually in sleeper buses, and handle every part of the concert productions except actually performing the music with the musicians. This catch-all term covers many people: tour managers, production managers, stage managers, front of house and monitor engineers, lighting directors, lighting designers, lighting techs, guitar techs, bass techs, drum techs, keyboard techs, pyrotechnic techs, security/bodyguards, truck drivers, merchandise crew and caterers, among others.

Road crew appearances

The road crew are generally uncredited, though many bands take care to thank their crew in album sleeve liner notes. In some cases, roadies have stepped in to help out with playing onstage.