Averitt From the Driver's Seat Podcast: We're Going on Tour!

Welcome to From the Driver's Seat, an Averitt podcast for all Averitt associates to keep up with news and information across our network. Make sure to subscribe on your preferred podcasting app so you'll be sure to be notified the moment a new episode drops. And now, director of driver services and hosting from the driver's seat, David Royals. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. We got a great podcast today and we're gonna talk about On Tour Logistics, the LTL group within Averitt Express. It's a great thing. We've got two folks with us here today. Hey, how are doing, Scott? I'm doing well. And how are you doing, Scott? I'm great. We've got Scott and Scott from OTL with us this morning and looking forward to talking to y'all and learn a little bit about OTL, talk about the uniqueness of OTL and talk about some of that stuff. Scott, you're a driver, right? Yes sir. How long have you been driving with OTL now? I'm going on my seventh year. Seventh year? My favorite and seventh year was OTL. How long have we had LTL going now Scott? Officially almost eleven years. Eleven years. So you're one of the senior guys on LTL with seven years in, right? You're one of the most senior that have been there for a while, right? Yes sir. Obviously, LTL is a niche. It's a niche market really, but what makes it different that makes you like it over other opportunities? I pretty much can plan my entire year. On a tour, you know pretty much when it starts, when it ends. There may be a change here, show canceled or something like that, but it's a paycheck for that duration and stuff. They have what they call when you're on long tour, like this year, mine's going to be four months long, long tour portion of it. So I know for that four months, I'm going get the same paycheck every week for that four months. It pays really well. I mean, pays extremely well. That's like a salary, right? It's not based on your mileage, right? Is. If you have a down week that time and they need help on another tour, you could either get extra money, doing a co drive. You could get extra money doing a one off is what they call maybe a weekend show and stuff. So you get double dip for money there. So there's pros to it. I love it for that reason. You get to see a lot more of the country, that you don't normally see with, with Truckload and stuff, but, but it's a great job. Like I said, hours can be, they're pretty much steady. You're either going to be driving during the day or at night. Normally you start out at night headed to the next show because of course all the concerts normally happen. Take us through a look. What happens? Let's say, okay, you're starting out on the concert and you leave out from Nashville maybe? Yes, sir. Okay, so you leave out. Go through like a week maybe of the first tour or what happened. From a driver perspective, what do you do? Well normally when you start, you'll pick up gear and stuff in Nashville, everything that you need for the tour, and then they'll have you your schedule for that week, all your stops that you're gonna have that week for, alright, you may start in Nashville, your first show is in Jacksonville, Florida. So you're gonna load Nashville, go Jacksonville, Florida, and then you'll load in probably eight o'clock. If you left on Monday, be there by Wednesday, load in Wednesday morning, say nine o'clock, eight o'clock in the morning, just depending on that. Get unloaded, grab breakfast, lay down and take a nap, and then get ready to get back up normally around eleven o'clock, ten o'clock, depending on what time the show is over, start loading the truck up and then head to your next show. When you say load the truck up, you don't actually load the truck though, right? No, we strap and secure and stuff. It's our responsibility because once you pull out of that dock, if something moves or damaged, then you've got to answer to corporate and to the customer what's going on. I've heard very little of that kind of stuff We don't get, we don't, that doesn't happen. Very little. We do have to be careful. We, you know, physically, we're there to supervise and assist. Everything that we haul is on wheels, so it has to be strapped in properly, load bars, things like that, but like Scott said, you know, there's a team of other people that'll load it, but we strap it and secure it because when they close the doors, it's our responsibility, but we have very little problems with that, you know, and go to the next place, unload it and do the exact same thing again. And you pretty much learn the, you're not going learn it the first day or the second day, probably after a week, the beginning of the next week, you're to know how it packs. It's going to pack the same every time, unless you've got a show that say they're not using part of the PA stuff, it'll stay on the truck and stuff, but they'll give you a pack plan for it. You've got people within the crew of the artists and stuff. That'll, they'll call the pack for you at times and all, but it's, it's pretty much easy. It's just follow the steps and go from there. And then I like the country acts better because I normally do three shows a week. There's other acts I did need to breathe back at the end of last year and stuff, and they are it's from show to show to show. So there's different stuff there. Is basically the two different ones. And then you've got some shows that they try to, you run on recap. So you have to learn that and you have to be careful if they say, Hey, we need you to pull up so this truck can get in or whatever. So you've got to watch your clock and make sure you don't kick into overdrive on duty or stuff to make sure you've got your ten hour break in because if you've got an eight hour drive and you've started it, it can cause issues. There's a little more detail. It's not like a Truckload thing is like, well we're not going make it there tonight because there's an accident or something. You can't say, well, we'll deliver it in the morning. Yeah. And also those are the things that you have to be aware of. You have to plan ahead your route and stuff, shortest route. You may have to go an extra fifteen miles reroute or something if there's a wreck or a road closure or something like that. And then just learn, you'll do chains and stuff a lot more on that, especially this time of year when you go out west. Right. And all, but just be aware of what you need to do and make sure you have a plan and follow it and be adaptable. Yeah, one thing I've had drivers over the past has talked to me about, and you're talking about the tours, a lot of times there's more than one truck on a tour, right? And some of the tours, I know this year is going be thirty trucks on a tour, close to them, right? Thirty two for one. Thirty two trucks on one. I think so there's really large groups and then there's some five or six trucks and two trucks and things like that. I've heard drivers talk about liking the camaraderie. They build friendships with those folks because they run the same tours, a lot of them run the same tours every year, right? And you almost become an extended family in that sense, which even when you come into a hotel, you're like a family. It's to help each other out and stuff. People may call you up if you've worked with them and they're like, Hey, I've got this one off run. Like I did, Jake was my first tour when I came and then the lead driver me, he's like, well, what's your schedule for? And then went down for the foundation show in Florida to help him out. So it's kind of like making an acquaintance or something and it can come back and help you. Hey, I didn't have anything scheduled there. So it goes to help you out. So it just makes it a lot easier and a lot of the crew that's still there, they're like, Oh, welcome back. It's like you never left. And also it's great. Drivers go out and you've five or six drivers on a tour, but one of those guys is going to be in charge, right? We've a lead driver maybe? Yes, he'll be the experienced driver and he will take a new driver that doesn't have any experience and they can lean on them and show them the ropes and we know the guys and gals that we have, we have some of them like Scott, seven, eight, nine, ten years experience and we have some with just a few days experience, it could be their first run. You know, we do try to show them everything that we can in the orientation class, we try to give them a heads up so they're not going out there cold, We give them all the information that we can and then we do send them out with an experienced driver and they can learn the ropes that way and I'm not gonna say it's trial by fire, but the best way to learn it is to be out there and do it. You know, we can show you everything we can in the classroom, but until you get out there and do it, and most everybody picks it up very quickly. Well, know, and also we've got to support folks. We've folks in corporate that's helping us, know, we've got you. Explain what you do Scott a little bit. Operations and sales, all of our equipment is based at OTL yard in Nashville. We're two miles from the Nashville Service Center. That's where all of our trailers are, of course our warehouse there with our storage lockers are there. Majority of our tours are based out of Nashville. All of our vendors from sound light, video, staging, all the band's equipment, majority of that is in Nashville. So that's where a majority of that will start and that's where I'm based out of. So, you know, fly around as needed. We'll go drive as needed and do a team drive every now and then. You've got more than just you at Nashville, right? There's a couple folks. Yes. Do have, two full time guys now that do strictly local, driving in Nashville. I'm looking for a third guy and then a fourth guy. So anybody that's based out of Nashville want to do some local OTL, I need at least a couple more guys for that. So Nashville, there's a concert in Nashville seven days a week. And then you got all kind of award shows, you got festivals, you got different type of events with the convention centers. So we stay pretty busy in Nashville just from a local standpoint. But having all the equipment there, majority of our vendors are there. So Nashville's kind of the hub for that. So that's where I'm at and that's my world. That's the key to it. Driver, you've got a lot of support. You're out there driving around all over the country doing different tours, but you've got folks that are back here that help you take care of issues, breakdowns, still happen. You're still gonna have the stuff with the trucks and they help you out and do all that. So you've got support back here, right? There is. There's lots of support. You've night dispatch. We send emails if we have an issue. It's AverittOTL dispatch and that goes to everybody. That goes to safety, our fleet manager, Scott, Jennifer, everybody in the office and stuff. So you're going to get a call from somebody and say, Hey, what's going on? And you know the other thing sitting here looking, of course, I've got a red shirt on today and y'all got black on. I know folks see the black shirts every once in while ago, how come we got some drivers with black on, right? All your on tour stuff, it's always the black with the red in the back, but there's a reason it's black too, right? Sure, I mean there's two different reasons. One, it doesn't show dirt very much. You might get dirty every now and then, but if you've ever been to a concert and you see any of the crew people that's operating the lights or sound, you know, you want them to be invisible, and so if you're wearing black, you're not to see them. If they're wearing a neon orange shirt, they're going to stick out like a sore thumb. So we kind of take the cues, that's kind of the industry standard of what crew people wear is black and that way you kind of blend in the background and we kind of go along with that, it kind of fits in and we just think it looks good. It does look good and you know, so a driver coming in, he may have just already ordered all his uniforms for red and then says, Hey, I wanna go to OTL in March or February one. So what does he have to do about getting uniforms? Does he get another allowance? Yes, you get, every January one, you get one hundred and fifty for red stuff and you get an additional one hundred and fifty for OTL uniforms, you know, after year and when you come in and decide to join OTL, you come into the orientation class, we get an OTL uniform that day. Well that's pretty good. The class, you mentioned the class, what is that, what are talking about the class, what's that? It's just an orientation that'll give you basically how life is on the road. You know, what's the difference of touring compared to hauling regular freight. You know, kind of the ins and outs, a lot of the terminology, the different, variances that we do within Averitt that affects OTL, you know, how we, you know, there's a couple of different breakdown procedures that we go through, you know, all the equipment is at the OTL yard, not at a service center, and a lot of the ins and outs of how we do things and why we do things. A lot of the lingo and the terminology and just kind of, you know, give you a heads up of what to expect when you get out there. We have a radio control backing portion of the class. Yeah, I've heard that before. Been talking to drivers, they say, What about that radio control backing? That sounds scary to me. It's super easy and the best way I can describe that is every truck driver has been to a shipper or consignee that you have to blindside around a corner of a building, down a dark alley, out of a road, and you just wish you had somebody back there. Now, if you're on a multiple truck tour, you've got Scott or a lead driver with a handheld radio back there watching you and he's driving the trailer for you and you just listen. So you got an extra set of eyes, sometimes you got two or three extra set of eyes. So that's a, it's a safety feature is all that is and it's very efficient, it is for safety, and it just makes things go a lot smoother. And then, you know, things like that, and we kind of show the different ways to secure the load with the straps and the load bars, because everything that we have rolls, everything is on wheels, and we don't have forklifts inside the trailer, everything is unloaded and loaded by hand, by the crew people or stagehands, and we show them, you know, the different ways of doing that and how to stay safe and do it correctly, because everything that we haul is very high value, so you gotta do that correctly as well. So the first time you did radio back, Scott, was you kinda nervous about that when you'd never done it before? It's a trust issue. You still wanna look in your mirrors and stuff all. And I tell guys, I said, do that. I said, if you see something and you don't feel comfortable with it, I'm in the back. I may be moving from the left side to the right side to just watch that side for you. Tell me, get on the CV and say, Hey, yeah, I think I'm going to hit this. Take a look at it. And the venues are different. Mean, I've seen over the years, tough places to back into for customers, but sometimes y'all have some really challenging places to back into for venues. I mean, sometimes I know I've seen them, guess, at Madison Square Garden where it goes down a tunnel and back up the other side so you really can't see the back of the trailer when you're, you see all kinds of stuff out there. Y'all get some challenge, but if you got somebody to help you, that's the main thing, right? It does and you know, like the biggest tour we'll have this year is thirty two trucks and you've got probably less than three hours to get thirty two trucks in unloaded and out. Wow. And you might have four to five dogs. So the more eyes you have, make it work safely and efficiently. So yes, it a big group effort to do that. That's a big group effort, And of course, LTL this year is going be bigger and stronger than ever, right? Right. We've got the business. We've got the business. Every artist that you can imagine is touring. Crowds are huge, ticket sales are huge and everybody's touring. So everybody needs trucks. Scott's done several different events of, it's not just concerts, we do political events, we do church events, we do conventions. We do wrestling, right? We do wrestling, AEW wrestling. So if it has a crowd, we haul it. So that's the best way to put it. And you know, this year, we talked a little bit a minute ago about this year gonna be a big year and obviously we have a need coming up in March and April, starting March and April in there. We're gonna need more drivers than we currently have and also we're gonna need some over maybe three weeks at a time, four weeks at a time. What's our needs this year? What are we looking for? I don't really know an exact number that we need, but if any truckload dedicated supply chain, any drivers are interested, we're even, you know, now we're opening it up to, if you want to, you know, try for a few weeks at a time, you know, we have a lot of need for team drives, you know, we'll fly you to a specific city and you go help a driver drive one shift, you know, then we'll put you in a hotel room, get your rest, fly you back, you know, back to your truck, your domicile, or wherever. We have a lot of need for team drives and we have different stretches through late spring and the summer, you know, we might need somebody just for a month and then if, you know, that's all you want to commit to, you don't have to commit to OTL fully for the whole year, you know, say hey, I can come out and I can commit to this amount of weeks or days and then I want to go back to Truckload or my account that I'm on with Dedicated. So we're opening that up as well, so if anyone is interested in that, you know, reach out to us and let's see what we can do. Okay, Yeah, I think it's going be a great year. I think overall we're going have a good year in twenty twenty four for Averitt I think OTL is obviously a part of that and it's operating extremely well. It's grown in the last eleven years. Think it's been, it's hard to believe it's been eleven years. I remember the first time we ever did this, you know, the first driver that was on it was Gary Craighead and we did the Olivia Newton John tour way back when. We had a lot to learn that day. We did. It was a one truck tour in the fall of twenty twelve and that was the first official tour. Then thirteen, we kicked it off and said, here we go. Yeah, and it's grown ever since and it's done well. It's been a really good part of Averitt. It's gonna be a part of Averitt for a long time to come and we're just gonna continue to grow that particular business unit in Averitt because it's doing extremely well. I appreciate y'all's time today. You so much. Appreciate it Scott. You. Thanks for having appreciate it. And folks out there, if you're listening to this today, what we're looking for, we're looking for some help and if this is something you think that interests you, then we need you to reach out. You can reach out to driver services, you can reach out to your leader and say, Hey, I want to talk to somebody about OTL. And like Scott said, we're not necessarily looking for somebody that, Hey, I want to commit for the whole year. I want to commit for two months out of the year or a month of the year, whatever time you want to commit, you know, out to us, talk to us, get your name on the list if you're interested in doing something like this and I think it'll be interesting for you. I think you'll like it. The folks I've talked to that have been on this account, the drivers are always happy it seems You know, they really enjoy it. So if this is something you think you're interested in, reach out to us, let us know, and give us a call. Thank you so much, we'll see you out on the road.