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Bud Wandrei, B.C. Place concert production veteran. Photo by Courtesy of Bud Wandrei /Bud Wandrei

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“Logistics are different for every show. With a show like U2’s 360 requiring 110 trucks and a five crane build, that takes a multiple days to finish while others you can do in a day,” he said.

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For the upcoming back-to-back dates from different artists, Wandrei says they’re doing something that they’ve never done before.

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“Noah and Guns is the first time we’ve ever used the same stage as the two artists came together on a design that suited each of them,” he said. “Noah will be loaded out by 3:30 a.m. and we will start rigging Guns right after, because there are very different requirements for everything from dressing rooms and catering to seating plans and barricade placements.”

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Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan of Guns ‘n Roses will perform at B.C. Place on a stage used by Noah Kahan the night before.

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Sharing steel, as stage sets are called, is very rare.

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Wandrei says it is common for artists to have multiple stages on the road, so you can play Edmonton one night and have Calgary being built for the following evening, for example, hopscotching sets across the continent. Real problems arise securing seating, barricades and experienced crews.

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“Arenas like Rogers usually have their own stages and such, but the massive stadiums are different,” he said. “I have to bring in chairs from A1 Rentals in Regina, as nobody else has them in Western Canada, and find enough people with the very specific expertise in building, running and tearing down a show. On a night where you have a concert at the PNE, Rogers and B.C. Place, that is not easy to plan out.”

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It takes hundreds of people to put on a major concert. While jobs like lighting rigger or sound person are easy to see in action, backstage, there is an entire other world where professionals such as Vicki Duong do specific jobs such as wardrobe handling.

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Vicki Duong is a concert wardrobe specialist. Photo by Qwisun Yoon-Potkins Photo by Qwisun Yoon-Potkins /Vicki Duong

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“I got involved in concert wardrobing when I was working at Hudson’s Bay and got to know a lot of the tour stylists who would come in to buy production items,” said Duong. “They needed extra hands for the Taylor Swift 1989 Tour (in 2015), and after working it, I signed up with Riggit Services Inc. for on-call wardrobe work. That can include everything from steaming outfits to organizing inventory and more.”

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Like Wandrei, she says each show is different.

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A Taylor Swift show can have dozens of people working wardrobe, where other tours might just be “me all alone in a room somewhere backstage.” Duong notes she doesn’t get to see many of the shows that she works.

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All of these experts plying their trade behind the scenes are what makes the magic happen when you enter B.C. Place for a concert. With its recent FIFA 2-star certification, the highest rating possible for a World Cup staging site along with history-making musical moments, the 54,000-seat space seems set to become one of a select few destination locations in the region for superstar appearances.

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“We’ve done a lot for the South Asian community with the Diljit shows and cricket, and I think we need to expand that to encompass the tastes of all British Columbians,” he said. “As I look to the future, while I can’t name a specific artist in the genre, I really want K-Pop in the room.”

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With genre superstars BTS adding dates to its World Tour Arirang and BlackPink having no 2027 dates yet on the books, May’s wish may just come true.

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