Balloons de Feline | Fiction, Music, Chaos & Catharsis

There’s a mindset that still creeps through touring culture — one that gets passed down like old lore:

If you’re overwhelmed, just keep moving.

If you’re hurting, stay quiet.

If you can’t hide it, step aside so someone “stronger” can take your spot.

But that approach has never protected anyone.

It’s outdated.

And honestly? It’s dangerous.

This Industry Isn’t Built by Perfect People — It’s Built by Capable Ones

Anyone who’s ever been part of a real tour knows that good crew members aren’t interchangeable.

They’re hard to find.

Harder to keep.

And nearly impossible to replace once they’ve become part of the backbone of a show.

You can’t teach instinct under pressure.

You can’t download experience.

You can’t replicate the kind of problem-solving that only comes from years in the trenches.

So when someone who’s genuinely good at what they do starts having a tough season, the answer is not to toss them aside like dead weight.

That’s not how touring works.

And it’s definitely not how people work.

Struggle Isn’t a Disqualification — It’s a Human Reality

Mental health doesn’t sit in a neat little box.

It shifts with life, stress, history, illness, trauma, exhaustion — all the things we pretend don’t exist once we’re backstage under show lights.

But the truth is this:

A person can be incredibly skilled and still have days where they’re fighting their own mind.

That doesn’t make them unreliable.

It doesn’t make them weak.

And it sure doesn’t make them disposable.

If anything, it proves that the people holding these shows together are human — not machines — even though the industry often expects machine-like endurance.

The People You Look Up To Have Struggled, Too

We rarely talk about it, but the calmest, most collected, most admired folks on tour have had their own moments of burnout, fear, grief, anxiety, and everything in between.

Some just learned how to hide it because the culture demanded silence.

But being praised doesn’t erase pressure.

Being respected doesn’t erase struggle.

We Don’t Lose People Because They’re Struggling — We Lose Them Because No One Supported Them

This is the part that hurts the most:

Good people burn out and disappear from the industry not because they lacked ability, but because no one made space for the reality of being human.

Imagine how much stronger touring would be if support wasn’t treated like a luxury.

If asking for help wasn’t viewed as a red flag.

If we stopped acting like vulnerability means someone can’t do their job.

People can heal.

People can learn tools.

People can come back stronger.

But they can’t do any of that if the message they hear is:

You’re only valuable when you’re unbreakable.

If We Want a Better Industry, We Have to Start Protecting the People Who Keep It Running

We don’t preserve the future of touring by pushing out the exact people who carry decades of knowledge.

We preserve it by actually seeing them.

Checking on them.

Making space for their humanity — not just their skill set.

A crew that feels supported works better, stays longer, communicates deeper, and builds shows that feel more sustainable — not just survivable.

Because at the end of the day:

People matter more than perfection.

Skill doesn’t disappear when someone is having a rough chapter.

And struggle is not the opposite of strength — it’s part of being alive.

This industry thrives when its people do.

And that starts with changing the way we treat each other behind the scenes.