From The Driver's Seat: On Tour Logistics Awards and Surprises

Welcome to From the Driver Seat, the Averitt podcast for all Averitt drivers to keep up with news and information across our network. Make sure to subscribe on your preferred podcasting app to make sure you're notified as soon as every episode drops. And now, hosting from the driver's seat, director of driver services, David Royals. Hey, everybody. It's Dave Royals. Got a great podcast today. Can't wait to listen to everybody talk. But before we do that, I wanna talk about uniforms. And, you know, we always talk about uniforms because it's part of our culture. We want everybody looking sharp. That's why you get your allotments. And make sure you spend your allotment this year. Get your uniforms. We've got the new vendor, Ubi Out. Great, great products. Take a look at them. Get them ordered as quickly as possible. By now, you should have already received your catalog. If you haven't, you're gonna be receiving it very shortly. So you can either look out on the website with averitt dot com slash uniforms, or you'll have your catalog that you can order from. But just make sure you order, use your allotment, make sure you're looking sharp when you're out in front of the customers for us. It just adds to adds to our culture, which gets us more freight, and it also attracts more folks. So we're excited about that. So make sure you do that. But I'm really excited about the podcast today. Today, we're gonna talk about on tour logistics. I got two folks with me. I got Travis. How are doing, Travis? I'm good. How are you? Good. I got Martina. How are doing? I'm great. Tell us a little bit about you. Travis, let's start with you. Travis, tell us a little bit about your journey at Averitt Express and what you do. Been at Averitt since twenty fifteen. I did a year of being a trainer. After that, I spoke to another driver in the Nashville service center, he told me about On Tour. And it sounded great to me. It's always something that I wanted to do, driving entertainment. So I called up the corporate office. I called talked to Jen, and she put me in the right place to take the class, and that was class thirteen. And that was two thousand sixteen. And I've been in OTL ever since. So that's basically a decade almost. Right? You've you've been traveling on tour just for a decade. Well, congratulations. That's good. Us a little bit about your journey. Let's see. I started with Averitt in twenty nineteen. I did six months of Truckload. Then after that, I went into OTL, and I've been doing OTL for six years now. Good. Enjoy it? Yes. Love it. You know, everybody I talk to that's in OTL, every time you ask them a question, how you like on tour? It's always, yeah, I love it. Yep. That's a that's a common response, isn't it? Yep. But why? That's why you you you said it. You said you love it. Why do you love it? I love it because I travel all over, including Canada. I meet interesting people. I have great colleagues. And some of my colleagues I've been with the entire tour. Like, I've been on Chris Stapleton for this would be year six. Wow. So and I've done Mina. So majority of my colleagues, get to work with year round. So you're with the same people year after year, basically? Yes. That's really interesting that you do that. I think I I think it it builds a nice family bond away from home. And majority of my colleagues that I roll with are are guys. I'm almost the only female. So I have a lot of brothers looking out for me while I'm over on the road. Well, that's nice too. It makes you feel safe. Right? Yes. Always. They always make sure I'm okay. Travis, what's your takeaway from OGL? Why do you why why do you how long have been doing it for a decade? Right? So Yeah. How why what what makes you stay? It's fun. It's it's consistent. We meet a lot of people, a lot of different people, a lot of people that have, like she said, became family a lot more than than friends. I look at OTL as a tight knit group. It's Averitt in itself is very tight knit and very family oriented to me, but OTL is like your brothers and sisters. It's just really more tight knit. Really? Like, may have problems and people may not get along and see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, we're there to do that one job, to get the show going, to make sure that everything gets delivered properly and we all come together and do it, whether we have differences or not. And you know, I think that's probably one of the standards that, you know, you talked about making sure the product gets delivered on time, which is basically the product is stage equipment. Right? Yes, sir. Don't you think we have a great reputation within the industry? Yes. Yes. I believe we do. We in my years of being OTL, I've only missed one show, and that was because it was weather oriented, and I just could not make it. Other than that, I have never been late to a show, never missed a show. It's the office has done everything in their ability to make sure that we made it to a show. That's really that's really nice. Yeah. Same with you pretty much. Everything's on time, runs on schedule. On time. Office support, good, good lot of support. Always Break down, just send a message, everybody knows, and it gets resolved. So we can keep those wheels moving. Keep going and get there on time. Right? Tell us what a lead driver is and what the what the responsibilities are. What's that different? A lead driver is pretty much the manager or the the boss out there. They help drivers get into the docks. They radio back drivers into the docks. They talk to production and make sure that they're happy and their needs are met when it become when it comes to drivers' quote, unquote fleet manager out there on the road. On-site. Yeah. Anything needs to be relayed to production or to the office, it goes through us, and then we relay that message and we relay it back to the drivers. You mentioned radio backing. Have you ever done that? Yes. What's that? Explain what that is. It's where the lead driver or the co lead radio backs us into the docks because some of the docks are very, very tight. So radio backed up. What is it what is it what do how do you do that? What what do you mean by that? They have a handheld CD And, of course, we're listening to them on our CD inside our cab. So they're telling you what to do, like, right, and turn it back and then Give me a little driver. Give me a little that you're trusting that person to watch and do what they say. Right? Yes. They're my eyes behind me. But a lot of trust goes into that being able to do all that and do it effectively. Right? Yes. And quickly because you don't, you know, you you don't have thirty minutes to get to the doc. Right? No, Not at all. It is very to the docs. People get each unloaded and get that person out and get the next person in? Yes. Correct. So it's a it's a constant move. Right? Yes. Because some docks some loading docks, there's only three three trucks could get in. So if you got twenty trucks, that's time consuming. So you gotta get in and get out. How many trucks are on the tour that you're running? Stapleton, it'd be fifteen. Fifteen? Mina is eight. Mina is eight? What about the one you're on? This year, it'll be the biggest that LTL's ever had. It'll be almost fifty trucks. Wow. Yes, sir. That's amazing, isn't it? It's When you think about fifty trucks for one artist. Yes, sir. Fifty three foot trailer. You know, fifty fifty three foot trailer. A lot of equipment. It's a lot of gear. Lot of responsibility, though. Right? I mean, you think about that, you know, you gotta get fifty trucks to a venue, you gotta get them unloaded in order. And they and they done load in order. Right? Yes. At a certain order, this truck's gotta go first to the trailer, then you it's reversed coming back out. Is that how it works? Nine times out of ten. Yes. Pretty much like that. Let's talk about home time. You know, and and, you know, I've always when you when you we talk to folks about, hey, you wanna go to OTL, you know, there's sometimes they hear these horror stories. Well, you can't get home for ten months. You know, you gotta stay away forever. But I don't think that's hardly true. And there and there's different tours of different lengths that are available and everything. Right? You don't you're not necessarily gone all No. Year. You're not gone all year. Tour can range from two weeks to six months. It could be anywhere in between there. You're not out that whole six months. Sometime you have a week break here and there. It may not be a week break at your service center, but it could be a week break somewhere close where you could just relax. Right. Yeah. There's there's times where I have been out on tour for close to six months. It doesn't happen often. Right. There's times that I've been on tour for a month and had a break in between. Right. So it it varies from artist to artist. Home time important to you still? You enjoy getting back? Yes. I do. I do. And like Travis said, like the tour I'm going on, I'll be I'll be out for three months. But, you know, sometimes it all depends. Like, I think we'll be going, like, towards New Orleans. Oh. So if I'll be be close to home, there's always a possibility I can go stop in. Oh, so they can come see if they wanted to. Right? If you were parked in New Orleans, your your family's in Baton Rouge, I guess? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Mean So there's always opportunities. Like you said, if you can get to your home domicile, you know, to park up or whatever, then there's opportunity there to go home. I think there's opportunity Travis was I was talking to Travis earlier. I think you even having your wife's coming to Las Vegas to go to Yes, sir. Go to a concert out there. Yes, sir. There's always that option that if you're in a city for a few days, you can run it past your lead driver or production or have your lead driver run it past the production team and just say, hey, I'm here for a few days. Is it okay if I have such and such fly out? They may wanna come to the show or they may just wanna go out to eat with you or something like that. And nine times out of ten, it it it's possible that that can happen. What would you tell drivers that are thinking they're on the fence, they're watching this and saying, yeah. I don't know. I might wanna do that or might not. What do you what what what's the what's what's the process? What do you what would you tell them to do? Sign up for the class. Yeah. Talk about the class a little bit. What's the class? Yeah. It's two to three day class. One day is actually just sitting down in the classroom going over the industry and sort of like a crash course of what actually happens out there, the terminology of certain cases, things like that. The second day is actually practicing radio backing and actually strapping equipment down in the trailer. And then they this past class, they added a extra day of just more radio backing and strapping just to make sure that everybody has a down pack. And it's not a it's not a commitment at that point? No, sir. You still have you you let the LTL team in the office know that you're still interested, and then from there, they'll work with you and your current fleet manager or dedicated account. I noticed y'all have black uniforms on. Right? I've got a red one because I'm not OTL. But OTL wears black all the time. And there's a reason for that. Right? Yes, Yes. What's the reason? Why why why black? So we could stay invisible, pretty much. If we're running around backstage or we're walking around, if we have on a bright red or a bright yellow shirt, they'll be able to see us. The crowd will be able to see us, and we'll stand out and take the shine away from, you know, the actual artist or Right. Things like that. And if we wear black, we just blend in. I don't wanna end the podcast without congratulating you. I appreciate it. Thank you. You won driver of the year Yes, sir. For I forget the name. Is it Live production something. Live production. Right, sir. Driver tour or entertainment driver of the year, I guess is what it Yes, sir. We've it's only been two OTL drivers that I've ever won. It it means a lot. I'm still surprised. Yeah. Really don't know what else to say about it. Well, we're we're proud of the way you represent, Averitt. We're proud of what we're proud of you for winning the award. We Thank know, we think it's a great great award, great thing for you. And so we talked about that a little bit. And if you look behind us, you'll see a new truck. And that's your truck. That's my truck. That's your truck. Sweet. We we have you a new truck that we're gonna give to you today. Alright. And it's one of the new Volvo's. And as you can see, it's not as shiny, clean. It's a there's the interior of the of the truck. Oh. So we thought you were very deserving of that. Yeah. Yeah. We wanted we wanted to present that to you today. I appreciate it. Thank you. We have it outside here in the parking lot. So when we leave, you're actually be driving that home today. Sweet. Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate what you did. We appreciate, you know, you representing Averitt the way you did and the way you carry yourself. So we appreciate that. We also appreciate you. I was I I did you come in second place? I don't remember. No. No. You didn't. Okay. Well, maybe you'll be in first place next year. You might be the third person from OTL to win one. Right? No. You never know. Right? I'm not a lead driver. He's coming shortly. Is that right? No. No. I'm good. Don't wanna do that? That's a lot of responsibilities. He got fifty trucks. That's fifty people. I'm good. I don't mind my role. I love my role. Well, we look forward to seeing y'all out there. Thank you all so much for coming in today. Appreciate y'all being here. Welcome. Thank you all. And thank you all for listening in. We're looking forward to the touring season. If you're interested in OTL, reach out. Let us know. You can reach out, talk to driver support services. You can reach in and call corporate. Talk to talk to somebody, find out what's going on. We'll get you set up for a class see if that's for you. And if it is, we'd love to have you. Thank you so much. We'll see you out on the road. Appreciate it.