Tech rider template.

01 What a tech rider is for

One email, no surprises.

The venue's engineer reads your rider the afternoon of the show, usually on a phone, usually while doing three other things. From it they need to know how many channels to patch, how many wedges to drag out, whether you need a drum riser, and whether anything about your set is unusual. A rider that answers those questions on one page gets read and followed. A rider that runs to twelve pages for a bar band gets skimmed, and then ignored, and then you are explaining the click track at sound check with fifteen minutes to doors.

It also sets expectations in both directions. Writing "we bring all backline" means nobody at the venue spends the afternoon looking for a bass amp. Writing "4 wedges on 3 mixes minimum" means the engineer knows what you can live with. The rider is where you say what is essential and what is a preference, so the room can do its best with what it has.

02 What goes in it

Eleven sections, most of them one line.

• Contact. The name and phone number of whoever answers on show day. It goes at the top, not in the email.
• Lineup. Who is on stage and what each person plays. The engineer counts vocal mics from this line.
• Schedule. Set length, how much sound check you actually need, and load-in: how many people, how many vehicles, how many minutes to set up.
• What you bring. Backline, cables, stands, in-ear packs. Everything the venue does not have to supply.
• What you need from the venue. PA and engineer, vocal mics and stands, drum mics, DIs, how many wedges and mixes, a riser if you want one. This is the section the engineer reads twice.
• FOH and power. Whether the house engineer mixes or you travel one, and where on stage you need power drops.
• Lighting. One sentence. "House wash, no strobes" is a real instruction and most small acts have nothing more to say.
• Monitor mixes. One line per wedge: who it is for and what they need to hear more of.
• Input list. Every channel in the order engineers expect: drums, bass, guitars, keys, other instruments, vocals.
• Stage plot. The drawing. Where everyone stands, where the amps and wedges and power go, with stage left and right labeled.
• Hospitality, optional. Water on stage, a green room if there is one, guest list, parking. Two or three lines for a local act; a separate document for a touring one.

The template above has a field for each of these. The monitor mixes and input list sit under the tabs because the stage plot shares them, and the plot itself is the other tab.

03 An example tech rider

What a working 4-piece actually sends.

This is the 4-piece rock band preset from the template, laid out the way it prints. Page two would be the stage plot, the twelve-row input list, and the four monitor mixes. Nothing here is a demand, every specific mic says "or similar," and the two things that do not matter much (the riser, the strobes) are labeled as preferences.

Change the preset in the template to see the same rider for a duo, a solo acoustic act, a jazz trio, a 7-piece with keys and horns, and a DJ. Each one is written the way that kind of act really advances a show, so most people only need to change the names, the numbers, and the date.

04 Three documents people mix up

Rider, plot, hospitality.

The stage plot is the drawing: a top-down view of where every performer, amp, monitor, mic, and power drop goes, with an input list next to it. Engineers patch from it. If you only send one thing to a bar, send this. The stage plot maker is the same tool as this page, opened on the drawing.

The tech rider is the document around the plot: lineup, schedule, backline, what you need, power, lighting, monitors, and the plot attached. Clubs, support slots, festivals, and any show with a production manager want this. For a small act it is one page of text plus the plot.

The hospitality rider is about the people, not the show: food, drinks, dressing room, guest list, parking, accommodation. Touring acts send it as a separate document because it goes to a different person at the venue. A local or regional act writes two or three lines at the bottom of the tech rider and stops. Asking a 100-cap room for a fruit plate is how you get remembered for the wrong reason.

Festivals often send their own "technical advance" form. Your rider is what you copy the answers from, so keep one current version and fill in their form from it.

05 Writing it so it gets read

Requests, not demands.

• Say what is essential and what is preferred. "3 mixes minimum, 4 if possible" tells the engineer where the floor is. A list of twelve requirements with no ranking tells them nothing.
• Write "or similar" after any mic model unless you bring it. The engineer needs to know dynamic, condenser, or DI, and short stand or tall boom. The brand is a preference.
• Keep the text to one page. The plot and input list are page two. If your rider is longer than that, you are either a very big act or you are padding.
• Put a phone number at the top. The rider gets forwarded, printed, and separated from the email. The number should survive that.
• Date it and name the file. night-owls-tech-rider-2026.pdf beats rider_final_v3.pdf. When the lineup changes, the year changes.
• Do not copy a touring act's rider. The famous ones are online and they are wonderful reading, but a four-piece asking for a 48-channel console and a tour bus parking spot at a Tuesday club show is not going to get either, or the gig back.
• Do not send it as a Word file. A PDF opens the same on every phone and keeps the plot with the text.

06 DJ tech rider

Shorter, and mostly about the table.

A DJ rider is the easiest one to write and the one venues most often never receive. What matters: what you bring (laptop and controller, or you play on the club's decks), the models you need if you play on house gear ("2 x CDJ-3000 and a DJM-900 or similar"), how you connect to the house (two XLR or two DIs from your mixer), booth monitors, and a stable table at a stated height with power at it. Set length, and whether you can extend. That is the whole rider. The DJ preset in the template fills it in; swap the gear names and you are done.

07 Sending and keeping it

One version, everywhere.

Attach the PDF to the advance email a week before the show, and put the same PDF in the Downloads section of your EPK next to the press photos and the bio. Bookers already open that link for photos; production people can grab the rider from it without asking you, and a festival's advance form can point at it. When the lineup changes, you update one file in one place. If you do not have a press kit yet, the music press kit template lays out every section, and how to make an EPK gets you from a folder of files to one link in about twenty minutes.

Keep the venue and date fields generic in the copy you host ("Standard rider, 2026") and fill them in per show when you export for a specific advance. The template above saves in your browser, so that is a thirty-second job.