Rider (theater)
requests or demands by a performer
In theater, dance, and live musical performances, a rider is a set of requests or demands that a performer sets as criteria for performance, which are typically fulfilled by the hosting venue. Types of riders include hospitality and technical.
Since the 2010s, inclusion riders, which provide for certain levels of diversity in casting and production staff, are used in the film and television industry.
Types
Hospitality
The hospitality rider is a list of requests for the comfort of the artist on the day of the show. Common requests are:
Specific foods and beverages (typically water, but sometimes alcoholic beverages)
Fresh towels
Transportation and hotels
A runner (a person or persons hired to act as a personal shopper/driver for band and crew needs)
A number of complimentary ("comp") tickets or guest lists (free tickets for friends and family)
Security personnel and/or locking rooms
Access to a private bathroom and/or shower
Ice
Technical
A document which specifies the types of equipment to be used, the staff to be provided, and other arrangements directly relating to the performance.
For live music performances, technical riders usually include:
An input list, which will highlight every single stage connection that the engineer is going to be making, giving them an idea of how many channels are going to be required for the show.
A stage plot, a rough block diagram that shows where each band member will be on the stage.
Typical requests are:
Piano
Orchestras will often specify a make of piano (e.g., Steinway) and a standard of tuning for the instrument, should their program require one.
Sound
Sound reinforcement system, generally described in terms such as 'a professional quality 3 or 4 way active system', frequency response (e.g., 45 Hz-20 kHz) and power (either in wattage or dB SPL) are also common.
Mixing consoles—it is normal for engineers to specify a list of preferred consoles and also minimum requirements (such as number of channels) from other consoles as a backup.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rider (theater)” as requests or demands by a performer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1649732. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rider (theater)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.