What's on an Orchestra Technical Rider — and How USO's Self-Owned Setup Cuts Your Costs

An orchestra's technical rider lists the stage, power, sound, monitors and lighting a show needs; the hospitality rider covers hotels, meals, dressing rooms and transport. Because United Soloists Orchestra owns and buses its own console, in-ears, mics and backline, a promoter rents far less locally — so your rider burden and cost drop sharply.

What is an orchestra technical rider — and why does it shape your budget?

A technical rider is the document that tells a venue exactly what a show needs to run: stage size and risers, power, the PA, monitors or in-ears, microphones, lighting and backline. It shapes your budget because every line the artist can't bring becomes something you rent, ship or hire locally.

That's why who owns the gear matters more than almost anything else on a touring booking. Two documents govern every USO date — a technical rider and a hospitality rider — and USO deliberately keeps both lean, because the orchestra travels self-equipped by bus. The rest of this piece walks through what's on each one, and where your local costs disappear.

What's actually on USO's technical rider?

On USO's technical rider the orchestra travels with its own FOH and monitor consoles, Waves servers, a full 5.8GHz in-ear system and its specialised string and vocal mics. From the venue it asks for the big, immovable things: a stage with four sized risers, a professional PA, wedges and a full lighting rig.

What USO brings itself — the parts you don't rent

This is the block that zeroes out the most expensive local rentals. USO travels with:

• Consoles & processing: the option to fly its own FOH console, its own stage-monitor console — a Behringer Wing loaded with pre-configured scenes — and its own Waves processing servers, so the whole monitor mix arrives already programmed.
• In-ear monitoring: a complete IEM system on a 5.8GHz network with reinforcement antennas, tuned for a full orchestra on stage.
• String & vocal mics: specialised contact microphones for the entire violin section (Schertler DYN V P48), wired vocal mics for venues under 1,000 capacity, and general production mics.

What USO asks the venue to provide

The venue side is deliberately limited to the heavy, fixed infrastructure that never makes sense to truck across a border:

• Stage & risers: at least 10×5 m (ideally 14×10 m) with four risers — drums (2×2 m), percussion (2×2 m), horns (3×2 m) and a conductor's riser (1×1 m at 20 cm high).
• PA & audio: a professional PA (e.g. L-Acoustics or d&b) clean at 112 dB at FOH without distortion, front fills, and 3× CAT6 runs from stage to FOH.
• Monitors: two to three high-quality bi-amped wedges (e.g. L-Acoustics HiQ or d&b M2), plus side fills for venues over 1,000 capacity.
• Stands & hardware: all mic stands (4 large, 7 small boom stands), network cables, XLRs and subsnakes, 4× wireless vocal mics for large venues, and clip-on mics (DPA 4099 or AT PRO35) for horns and percussion.
• Lighting: a grandMA3 control system, 7 beam and 5 wash moving lights, 22+ LED colour fixtures, 12 standard FOH/back lights, two ETC profiles for the conductor, a haze machine and one mirror disco ball. Power needs one dedicated line and 12 dimmer channels (2.4 kW DMX).
• Backline (only if USO isn't shipping its own): a high-end drum kit (Tama, DW), bass DI and stand, two guitar amps (Marshall, Peavey or Mesa Boogie), 20 music stands with lights, one keyboard, and 230 V 10/16 A quad AC drops.

It reads like a lot on paper, but notice the split: the venue supplies structure and the house PA/lights, while USO carries the fiddly, show-specific electronics that are hardest and priciest to source locally. The full, current rider lives with the production team — request it via the for-promoters page.

What does USO's hospitality rider ask for?

The hospitality rider is deliberately light. USO asks for 4-star hotels within 30 minutes of the venue, hotel breakfast, hot meals or simple backstage catering, clean lockable dressing rooms with a private space for the conductor, and a coach for airport and hotel transfers. Catering too hard? A modest buyout works.

• Accommodation: minimum 4-star hotels, no more than 30 minutes from the venue. The room list is specific — typically 6 singles, 10 doubles and 1 triple for the touring party.
• Catering: hotel breakfast, plus hot meals or simple backstage catering — sandwiches, fresh fruit, mixed nuts, local beer and wine, soft drinks and water.
• Dressing rooms: clean, lockable rooms for orchestra and band, a private room for the conductor, mirrors, at least 25 fresh towels, clothing racks and a steamer or iron.
• Ground transport: a private coach for airport transfers, and a daily coach when the hotel is more than a short walk from the venue.

The low-maintenance bit that promoters like: if hot meals at the venue are simply too hard to arrange, USO is happy to accept a modest buyout of CHF 30 per person, per meal. No drama, no elaborate green-room demands.

How does USO's self-owned setup cut a promoter's costs?

Because USO owns its gear, whole rental line items simply vanish from your budget. A fly-in pops-symphony show usually forces a promoter to rent an entire wireless monitor world — 13 stereo IEM transmitters, 18 receivers, an advanced stage-monitor console and clip-on mics for the whole string section. With USO, that line is zero; it all arrives on the bus, pre-configured.

That monitor world is exactly where pop-symphony budgets quietly balloon. In many cities the specific packages are scarce, so a local supplier sub-rents them in at a premium — and then someone still has to patch and programme the whole thing from scratch on the day. Here's what a self-owned USO date takes off your rental order:

• 13 stereo IEM transmitters and 18 receivers — the full wireless in-ear network for the orchestra.
• An advanced stage-monitor mixing console — USO's own Behringer Wing arrives with every scene already built.
• Specialised string-section microphones — the per-desk violin contact mics that are expensive and hard to source in quantity.

Before: you rent the IEM rig, the monitor desk and the specialist string mics, then pay a crew to configure them. After: that line is zero, patch is faster, and there's far less a local supplier can get wrong. That is the whole promoter case in one sentence — which is why USO leads every conversation with its rider, not its poster.

How many people tour with USO, and how fast is load-in?

A USO touring party scales with the programme — from 15 to 60 people, and typically 29 to 35 for a pops-symphony show: around 25 musicians, the conductor, a production/sound manager, a photographer and a couple of technical assistants. Gear moves by tour bus and van, and the venue needs just three local crew.

Despite the size of the orchestra, USO is genuinely lean on local labour. It asks the venue for only three crew: one audio system engineer, one stage assistant and one lighting support tech.

A typical show day runs like this:

1. 11:00 — load-in begins (technicians usually need two to three hours to load and set up).
2. 14:00–16:00 — rehearsal and soundcheck (about two hours).
3. 20:00 — doors and show.

That predictability is a direct result of touring the same, self-owned rig city after city: the crew rebuilds a setup they know, not a rental they've never met.

What does USO's touring record prove?

USO's numbers back the setup: 29 consecutive sold-out concerts across 2025 and early 2026, exactly 20,717 tickets sold, and a 14-concert China tour through cities like Wuhan, Nanjing and Shenzhen. For China the orchestra stripped back to a pure classical setup, asking only for big instruments and music stands.

Here's the flexibility in the orchestra's own words: in China it travelled with a classical-only setup — no mics, no monitors, no amplifiers. It asked local partners only for the big instruments (double basses, cellos, percussion, piano, harp) and music stands; the musicians brought their personal instruments and that was it.

Ticino Welcome (17 Aug 2025) called USO “l'ensemble che rivoluziona la musica in Europa” — the ensemble revolutionising music in Europe.

So the same orchestra can arrive fully self-equipped for a pop-symphony spectacular, or travel light for a classical programme — and it's targeting 18 to 25 concerts a year in Switzerland through 2026–2027. You'll find the press dossier, official documents and the full show catalogue on the for-promoters page, and the consumer-hire options on services.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a technical rider and a hospitality rider?

The technical rider covers everything needed to put on the show — stage, power, PA, monitors, microphones, lighting and backline. The hospitality rider covers the people — hotels, meals, dressing rooms and ground transport. Together they define what a promoter has to arrange locally.

What does USO bring itself, and what does the venue provide?

USO brings its own FOH and monitor consoles (a scene-loaded Behringer Wing), a full 5.8GHz in-ear system, Waves processing and specialised Schertler string and wired vocal mics. The venue provides the big, fixed elements: the stage and four risers, a professional PA, bi-amped wedges, a grandMA3 lighting rig and — where USO doesn't ship it — backline.

How much local crew does USO need?

Just three people: one audio system engineer, one stage assistant and one lighting support tech. Load-in and setup take roughly two to three hours, with about two hours for rehearsal and soundcheck before an evening show.

Can USO adapt its rider for a classical-only or smaller show?

Yes. On its China tour, USO travelled with a pure classical setup — no mics, monitors or amplifiers — asking only for big instruments and music stands. Party size scales from 15 to 60 people depending on the programme, so the rider flexes to the format.

How do I get USO's full rider and press kit?

Request the current technical and hospitality riders, the press dossier and official documents via the for-promoters page, or email the production team at andrea.masciarelli@uso.swiss to talk through your date, venue and programme.

About the author

Arseniy Shkaptsov is the founder, Music Director, conductor and arranger of United Soloists Orchestra. Trained in Moscow, at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano and at the ZHdK in Zurich, he has worked with mentors and artists including Neeme and Paavo Järvi, Kurt Masur, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ennio Morricone and Stefano Bollani. He designs USO's programmes, arrangements and — with the production team — the self-equipped touring setup described above.