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| Shadia Weeks Hospitality Director seehospitality@umd.edu |
Orchids on the coffee table, one bowl of strictly green M&Ms and 24 bottles of room temperature water—imported from Switzerland.
You might have heard stories about the outrageous requests of glorified superstars and the unfortunate souls who kneel at their beck and call. This is not one of those stories.
As Hospitality Director for Student Entertainment Events, I “coordinate hospitality needs for all SEE events, including event staff and performer needs.” What that means is: I take care of catering and other hospitality needs for all event staff, namely SEE employees. In addition, I provide talent, artists, performers and their crews with whatever their hearts desire (within reason) as stipulated in their riders.
The rider is basically a checklist of all the things artists request when they come to a venue. They often include dinner preferences, snacks, drinks, towels and linens, cutlery, gadgets and a plethora of other goodies. Riders vary drastically from artist to artist. Some are long, detailed and tedious, while others are brief, vague and almost completely uninformative. Some artists don’t even have riders. Either way, it’s up to me to make sure whoever visits our campus feels completely taken care of. I want the artist to feel comfortable at our university and have a nice greenroom they can relax in before and after performing. Sometimes they are very pleased. At our Back to School Concert last fall, the headliner Mac Miller even gave me a hug when I handed him a bottle of apple juice after the show. The juice was listed on his rider, so I got it. It doesn’t take much to make the artist happy, just get them what they asked for.
At all-hands-on-deck events, my job gets twice as big. This is where providing hospitality for event staff really comes into play. Not only do I have to prepare for the visiting artist, but I’m feeding all SEE employees, which includes SEE directors, advisors and team members. There are usually three all-hands-on-deck events a year, the biggest being Art Attack in the spring. Art Attack is a two-day production even though the concert is only a few hours on a Friday night. I’ve already stated working on Art Attack, even though the show isn’t until May.
I placed my first official 2012 Art Attack order last week when I ordered all the rental cars we’ll need (including four golf carts, everyone’s favorite part of Art Attack production). Because this event requires two days of production, I’ll soon coordinate all the catered meals for both days including two breakfasts, two lunches and one massive dinner for the 100+ people who will work the show on May 4th. Once the riders come in for our headliner (sorry kids, you’ve still got to wait for that one) I’ll start making arrangements for his/her greenroom as well.
Being Hospitality Director can definitely become stressful at times, but with everyone’s help and a seriously detailed “To-Do” list, we make it work. My work can be tedious, but in the end it’s so rewarding to see all the students having a great time in the stands at a sold-out event. Don’t let the movies disillusion you; artists are not innately maniacal egomaniacs with ludicrous demands and unforgiving tendencies, at least the ones that have come to Maryland in the past year. Hopefully I’m not proved wrong in the future. *crosses fingers*
