Mindfulness, Healthy Boundaries, Enough Sleep: Suzi Green Launches Touring Resilience Workshops

The three free sessions will cover Mindfulness for Touring with Craig Ali (Monday, June 21, 6 p.m. BST), Healthy Boundaries with Laura Ferguson (Wednesday, July 14), and Sleep & Jet Lag with Matt Kansy (Wednesday, August 4).

“The workshops will explore a range of topics from coping strategies for dealing with ‘heated’ moments in high pressure situations, how to naturally wind down at the end of an intense day, rate negotiation, managing workload and effective communication, maximising the quality of your sleep and techniques to combat jet lag and shift work,” the announcement states.

Suzi Green, the seasoned tour manager, whose clients include Placebo, PJ Harvey, Katie Melua, Wolf Alice to name a few, touched upon a lot of these topics in her recent interview with Pollstar, where she talked about The Back Lounge, an online support group for out-of-work touring professionals she launched.

Green talked about the challenges of returning back to life on the road, which is as exciting as it is exhausting, for freelance crew that’s been out of work for over a year.

The workshops she just announced tackle all of those challenges. Although open to anyone in the music industry, they’re specifically aimed at equipping the freelance touring community with tools in resilience before returning to tough scheduling.

They were made possible by the the UK government’s Culture Recovery Fund. 

Green experienced her own debilitating episode of burnout, and subsequently left touring for 10 years. Since retraining in various modalities, she later returned to the trade she loves with new skills in wellbeing to the benefit of artists and crew.

Green believes training in resilience will help guide performers and music crews, live events and festival workers, who have suffered collective and prolonged unemployment due to the pandemic, to make healthier decisions as they begin to book more regular jobs.

“People now have the opportunity to learn how to develop better coping strategies,” said Green, “We will all need to take our health seriously to survive long periods during busy touring schedules in the future.” 

The first workshop on June 21 is with Craig Ali, a wellbeing consultant, health coach and mindfulness facilitator. 

Said Ali, “Everyone in the music industry is going back into an intense, fast paced environment after having so much time off. 

“Whilst this is exciting for the industry, it will be a shock to the system and may create some tension and anxiety. In these environments it is important to have trained skills to help manage energy, regulate emotions and decompress at the end of the day. 

“The ‘Mindfulness for Touring’ workshop will train people in some of the most effective ways to do this on the go. Breathing and posture techniques will be taught to train the participants on how to stay calm, not be in reactive mode, create space in the moment and wind down the nervous system to promote recovery.”

Book your free place on a course, which will take place via Zoom, here.