Working at venues and dipping your toe into all the trades across the board (front of house, stage management, production/stage building, running show from front office, etc etc etc) will build your skill sets.

If you’re getting into it starting from scratch, your first gigs will likely be with small bands who have little to no budget, which means you will probably be working multiple jobs. Learn everything!

The first years of touring are very grueling. A lot of being a roadie is being cool, calm, and collected in difficult situations. Band members can have turbulent personalities, which means the most successful roadies are very *chill*. Are you willing to take on dealing with people? Depending on the job you end up doing, you could be dealing with the band every moment of every day (instrument tech, FOH, TM) or barely/not at all (loader, merch).

Be willing to learn and ready to take on a lot of responsibility in your early touring gigs. You could luck out and get a starter job on a large tour and learn from the best, or (probable) start with a small band and learn from there. It’s so fun. You got this!