Dealing With Difficult Prima Donna Musicians

 
We had to deal with flight delays, missed connections and a host of on-demand requests on the day of the show. That included a little starlet who wanted to go to a health food store on the spur of the moment, a trip to the emergency room for another, and yet another who needed to go to Macy’s real quick for a new pair of shoes.

As you know, all of these requests are somewhat routine. However, when you have a finite number of vehicles assigned to various trips associated with the event and someone comes up and says, “I want to go back to my hotel right now for a nap,” and you don’t have a car readily available, it can be tricky to explain. I loathed hearing a washed up geriatric star bark and me and say, “Transportation companies should work around MY schedule and not the other way around.” I bit my tongue firmly and promised him I would have a ride for him in 10 minutes if he could be patient. We handled it.
 
However, when I questioned an artist’s manager about his flight arrival by email, he shot me an email that said, “If you want to play in the big boy sandbox you better pay attention to what is going on with American. American Airlines bought U.S. Airways so get a clue.”  At that point, I asked the manager to send me a copy of the actual airline ticket as the flight number didn’t match anything that came to my city.
 
I very much enjoyed pointing out that he gave me the wrong flight number and the ticket clearly stated, “This flight is operated by U.S. Airways." As long as you are nice about it, and don't say "I told you so," the point will be made well enough. Bam!!!

Related article: How To Work With A Prima Donna