Ritch Ames

I've started a Substack called 'The Stage Clock'; backstage stories, anecdotes, near misses, and hard-earned lessons from 30+ years as a Stage Manager at festivals and live events. My second post is "A Typical 24 hours at a Festival Main Stage", link in my bio. Please read, like, subscribe and let me know what you think or would like to hear about in future posts in the comments!

I've started a Substack called 'The Stage Clock'; backstage stories, anecdotes, near misses, and hard-earned lessons from 30+ years as a Stage Manager at festivals and live events. My first post is "What A Festival Stage Manager Actually Does", link in my bio. Please read, like, subscribe and let me know what you think or would like to hear about in future posts in the comments!

And that’s probably that for me in 2025, @epfestival Electric Picnic is probably my last show of an amazing season, starting in May, and finishing in September- thanks to everyone that has been part of my team, thank you for your hard graft, the banter, the laughs and the memories we now share. Another superb photo borrowed from the official EP Instagram page, @hozier fireworks exploding over my stage, EP’s Main Stage - go look and follow, like and share. #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

Electric Picnic @epfestival Sunday night and headliners @kingsofleon have just finished, and that’s it for another year. This years show was tough, the weather didn’t help, the wind was a menace all day Sunday, and what was initially supposed to be the “easiest” of the weekend fast turned into the hardest. This bunch of lovely Music Consortium folks, my show call stage crew, were asked with very short notice to start two hours early, and they did with very little moaning and together we somehow forced the show to happen. Thanks to you all!! We fucking did it!!! #stagemamager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

It’s Sunday night at @epfestival Electric Picnic, headliners the @kingsofleon are on, and if you zoom in, you can see me and Neil Marcus having a cup of tea just off stage left. Sunday is almost over. What a relief, it’s been relentless and I’m exhausted. This incredible photo has been borrowed from the @epfestival official page, pop over the that, give them a follow and see loads more amazing photos and reels. #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

I first saw @thecranberries at ULU in 1991, weirdly when @rickygervais was the entertainments manager and I was the then Social Secretary of Kingston Uni, and I was desperately trying to work out how to get our venue on the circuit. This is something 30 years later, that Beggar’s Banquet have managed to do, though I did get @radiohead in 1993 for £100 and had to turn down @oasis and Whiteout on the double headline tour because the only date I could get was a bank holiday Monday, and 99.9% of the Kingston students went back to their Home Counties homes at the weekend… the dicks. Anyway, as previously mentioned, this was a fucking hard day to deal with, lobbing in the first reunion of the band since Dolores’s tragic passing with an orchestra just made it far too emotional for me, when the previously mentioned Electric Picnic audience, aka the 80k choir, started singing every single word back, my god. Zombie almost tipped me over the edge. Hope no one noticed. Thanks for your patience, the Irish dream team that included Lee McMahon, Darren Dunphy, Murt Whelan, Keith Killen, Gavin O’Sullivan and production manager Liam McCarthy. I hope this tours, it was fantastic. This photo, featuring special guest @dermotkennedy has been borrowed from the official @epfestival EP Instagram page, go there now and see loads more photos of this set, including videos (which I can’t watch yet!) #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

This is a long post. It’s Sunday at @epfestival Electric Picnic and I’ve just spotted that this part of the tent structure was also part of my stage at Glastonbury Festivals Other Stage. It’s a damn shame EP’s stage isn’t exactly the same size backstage as I’ve got at Glastonbury, we needed it for Sunday. Looking back now, probably my last day of festival season, it was the toughest I’ve faced, ever, even that day of the double headliner The 1975 and Strokes. There are not any photos, because I didn’t get time to take any, apart from this one. I’ve never been a fan of the Kings Of Leon, but they had some top heavy floor lights that we could not move due to the strong gusting wind, nor could we move the huge upstage screen down to hide them and the band themselves didn’t want me to move them. The KOL loaded in overnight, and Becky Hill was due to load in at 08:00. Adding to the pressure, despite the dock only holding 5 trucks and 9 trucks coming in, the second act of the day was the highly anticipated and emotional reunion of The Cranberries band with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, they have a lot of mics, risers and equipment that all needs checking whilst I have to come up with plans to make this show day happen with no space and no time. This is also like an EP reunion for me, with old EP PM Liam McCarthy, Darren Dunphy, Murt Whelan, Gavin O’Sullivan. Keith Killen, Lee McMahon, Michael McCormack and many other old faces returning to the stage to put this fantastic tribute to Dolores. During the morning, I lost count of how many different ways I came up with to try and please and appease everyone. It was exhausting, but at the end of the day, everyone did their full sets and finished on time. #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

@epfestival Electric Picnic Saturday headliner @officialfatboyslim Fatboy Slim had streamers not confetti to end his set, these were shot out from the pit, but the strong winds pushed them straight back to towards the stage and they got tangled in the lighting trusses. Cue the legend that is Redman Neil Marcus the overnight stage manager and his broom to clear it all up before morning. The silly things we have to do, to make these shows happen. #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

Saturday headliner and our wedding guest and DJ does another awesome set to a packed out arena, @officialfatboyslim headlined the first Electric Picnic main stage I worked on in 2013, the 10th anniversary of the festival. Blimey. Photo borrowed again from the @epfestival EP official instagram page, pop over to that to see more of the slim boy fat, (that rhymed) including videos. #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

Before @kneecap32 KNEECAP went onstage at @epfestival Electric Picnic they signed the main stage tent. I love this - think all artists should do it. Hope Serious Stages don’t sue them!! #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #kneecap #electricpicnic2025

It’s day two, and the second band on Main Stage at Electric Picnic is the “controversial” @kneecap32 KNEECAP. For the record, as an English bloke stage managing the main stage at the biggest Irish music festival I often feel unwelcome, not as much as I was when I first started - but nowadays everyone accepts me and these guys and their team are lovely. And for the record, I fully support their stance on Palestine and the right to free speech, history will show who was on the right side. One of the, if not the biggest audience of the EP weekend, incredible support for a band on at 3:30 in the afternoon, and I let them run over by 3mins. They are going to be huge, future festival headliners without a doubt. Photo borrowed again from the official @epfestival page, see loads more including videos of Kneecap walking onstage, and stage diving. #kneecap #freepalestine🇵🇸 #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025

The Irish Flag 🇮🇪 in @hozier ’s fireworks. Back home there’s a load of thick shits sticking up flags and painting roundabouts in protest of the immigrants seeking asylum in the UK, never forget that these thick shits also voted for Brexit, which subsequently took us out of the Dublin agreement which means our old EU friends no longer have to deal with these desperate folks and send them back before they get to the French coast, now every case has to be discussed in the UK. Slow hand clap for the Reform supporters who literally voted for this to happen, and the UK feels like it did 10 years ago in the lead up to the referendum - but remember to blame the con men, not the conned. Back to @epfestival Electric Picnic - the SFX guys said they had loads of fireworks left over from the Oasis shows and Hozier’s was the biggest finale I’ve seen all summer, ending with this - the Irish Flag 🇮🇪 #stagemanager #stagemanagerlife #electricpicnic2025