Today we’d like to introduce you to Eddie Powell.
Eddie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
It was actually a coincidence. One day I was working as a runner backstage at a Patti LaBelle concert in Buffalo, NY where I grew up. As the day progressed and when on doing the daily duties as a runner, suddenly, the production manager for the tour asked me If I was available to go on tour with them as a wardrobe director, which I hadn’t done before.
On previous concert shows I helped out in the wardrobe department, but I’d never actually been responsible for the job itself. I was totally caught off guard, one I wasn’t expecting that, and also I wasn’t prepared to just drop my life at that moment to go on tour.
So as the evening came, he continued to ask me and said it would only be for one week until they could find a permanent person for the job. Surprisingly, I accepted, and after the week ended, they asked me to stay full time as the wardrobe director for Patti LaBelle which lasted for six years from that day on.
I was then hired as the wardrobe director for R&B singer Johnny Gill and I began going back and forth between tours with both artists. Then, I became the wardrobe director for the R&B group Boyz II Men for two years. After eight years of working in wardrobe management, I became a production assistant on tour in the production office learning and dealing with the day to day movements of the production of the tours I was working on.
A few years later, I was promoted to road manager for the R&B group New Edition. Once that tour was over, I began to work for several artists as their road manager also. Through hard work and determination and keeping myself visible in the music industry, I became a tour manager working with several artists such as Fantasia, Ciara, Keyshia Cole, and Latoya Luckett.
Once my name and work ethic began to circulate through the touring industry, I was fortunate to start to receive calls from and work with “A” list artist like Chris Brown, Alicia Keys, and, Justin Timberlake and most recently, Megan Thee Stallion.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely been a road filled with many challenges and learning curves!
Learning to live with so many different people in close quarters, sometimes for six months to one year, has been a huge obstacle over all of these years honestly. But to list them all I’d honestly have to say missing major family events, working while you’re not feeling well or under the weather, managing all different types of personalities, extremely long working hours, lack of sleep and constant moving day to day, city to city, and if it’s a world tour… country to country.
These all have been my biggest challenges, that can allow me to say, it has not been a smooth road, but definitely a road worth traveling nonetheless.
On Tour Services Unlimited – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
On Tour Services Unlimited organizes Entertainment Events, Concert Tours, Sporting Events (such as Golf, NBA, NFL), and Live Television Appearances such as Awards Shows.
We organize the complete event from beginning to end including arranging the Production, Lighting, Sound, Video, Trucking, and Tour Buses. We organize all travel arrangements: Hotels, Airlines, Ground Transportation, Private Charter, International, Passport & Immigration Document Processing. And we also arrange the day to day movement and scheduling like Travel Arrival & Departure, Sound Checks, Meet & Greets, Radio Interviews, and Showtimes.
OTS is known for our extreme professionalism, hard work, and ability to follow through and we always understand that presentation is key. Our company was designed to service the music industry from the highest-profile artists to the newest upcoming artists.
We offer extreme detail in all of our tours and/or events, we provide knowledgeable and friendly team members that pay attention to details, are extremely organized and who are always seeking the best options for the client.
Educating the client while simultaneously working on their project so they have an understanding is very important to us. We are fully dedicated to seeing that every project receives the same level of expertise regardless of how big or how small….. Everyone is a star at On Tour Services!
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Over my career, I’ve always been fortunate to continually excel over the years, from one position to a better one over time. Elevating from Wardrobe Director to Artist Manager was a great achievement for me.
I received a call in 2019 from a group I had worked with during the Scream Tours saga back in the early 2000s. The group was Pretty Ricky who informed me that they were about to go back out on tour and wanted to bring me on to help manage the group and the tour. So I then became an Artist Manager in 2019 on the infamous Millennium Tour.
We successfully completed a 40-city arena tour. Beginning of 2020, the group was invited to return back to the Millennium Tour 2020. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 virus, the tour has been postponed until further notice.
So it’s been an interesting and an amazing journey filled with great people, great experiences and memories I couldn’t possibly fit into so little words.
Pricing:
- 1-On-1 Phone Consultation – $99 for 30 minutes
- **SPECIAL 1-On-1 Phone Consultation – $99 for 1 hour
- 1-On-1 Video Consultation – $150 for 1 hour
Contact Info:
- Website: OnTourServicesUnlimited.com
- Phone: 321-209-5779
- Email: OnTourServices@gmail.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/eddiepowelljr
- Facebook: Facebook.com/OnTourServicesUnlimited
- Twitter: Twitter.com/EddiePowell
Image Credit:
Okwa Andrew Solutions
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