Event production and technical in Japan.

The venue does, usually through its own nominated rigging contractor, and its word is final. A great many hotel ballrooms here have no certified rigging points at all, which means ground support towers, a heavier truck and a floor plan that loses covers. Ceiling heights are frequently lower than a touring design assumes. This is the first thing we check on a site survey, because it can redraw the whole show.

Because the room was sold that morning and is sold again the next. Dock slots are booked, truck size is limited by the dock and the goods lift, and an overnight build is a room the client has to buy rather than a favour the venue grants. The realistic fix is a build designed for the window: pre-assembled scenic, a smaller number of larger elements, and a cue-to-cue rehearsal scheduled instead of hoped for.

Kit yes, on a carnet, with transformers and distro that suit a 100V supply and a frequency that changes between eastern and western Japan. Crew is more limited: venues expect a local crew chief, local labour works to scheduled hours, and safety sign-off is given to someone the venue recognises. Visiting technical leads work best as designers and operators with a Japanese crew underneath them, which is also how the documentation ends up in the language the venue reads.

Untreated scenic and drape, naked flame, pyrotechnics and, more often than buyers expect, haze — because it sets off the detection in a hotel ballroom unless the system is isolated with the venue’s agreement and notice. Materials need to meet the venue’s fire-retardant requirement with paperwork, not assurances. We put the whole scenic and effects package to the venue in advance so a refusal happens on a drawing rather than on site.

Booking an act is one component. The larger part is everything between the contract and the performance: what the venue can supply, what has to be brought in, who signs off on the power and the rigging, and who is standing in the room when a cue is missed. Explera coordinates the destination-side production so there is one accountable party rather than a chain of suppliers pointing at each other.

Four to eight weeks once the act and venue are fixed. Custom stage builds, heavy rigging and anything requiring a permit need longer.

The rider is where budgets move. An international act's technical rider is written against arena-scale infrastructure, and a hotel ballroom will not meet it without hired-in equipment that nobody costed. We read the rider against the actual venue at quotation stage, so the number you receive is the number that delivers the show.

A written quote per enquiry, covering the artist fee and the destination-side costs as one figure. We do not publish artist fees — they are set by the artist and their management, vary by date and market, and any published number would be wrong the day it shipped. Quotes go to the agent at net rates; delivery is white-label.