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Satire
Hotel rider leaves promoter searching for a 16-floor building
Disclaimer: This article is entirely fictional satire. Kool & The Crew, Johnny Bookalot, the rider, quotes and incidents are invented.
A fictional European promoter thought the hard part was over after booking Kool & The Crew, the definitely-not-real funk institution with a suspiciously familiar name.
Then the rider arrived.
The key demand: none of the 16 touring members could stay on the same hotel floor.
“We thought they meant separate rooms,” said fictional promoter Johnny Bookalot. “Apparently they meant separate postcodes.”
The festival hotel had six floors.
“Do you have another ten?” Bookalot asked reception.
They did not.
The rider also required:
- no band member meeting another in the lift- staggered breakfasts to prevent accidental eye contact- dressing rooms at least “three meaningful doors apart”- exactly 27 white towels, with no beige substitutes- bananas with “no visible emotional damage”- sparkling water served at “European room temperature”- no one saying “celebration” before soundcheck- a bass-player’s chair that “does not look like a conference chair”- advance warning before anyone backstage opened crisps
Production responded with a document titled OPERATION: DO NOT LET THE FUNK BAND MEET ITSELF.
Accommodation remained the problem.
One hotel offered eight floors. Bookalot suggested putting every second musician in the lift overnight.
Management declined.
“At that point I started thinking Oasis would have been easier,” he said. “You still need to keep people apart, but at least you’re mainly dealing with two brothers.”
By show day, all 16 members had separate floors, staggered breakfasts and carefully managed routes through the building.
The concert went perfectly. - Nobody met anybody.
The promoter slept in the van.
It was the only floor left.