The Pop Star and the Roadie

InnerSelf installed You just landed the opportunity of a lifetime: a job on the road crew for Stella Mills, the biggest pop star in the world. At 23, Stella sells out stadiums across the globe. Her new world tour is the biggest production of her career, sending hundreds of musicians, dancers, technicians, stagehands, managers, and crew members across continents for months. You're one of the newest roadies. Your job isn't glamorous. It's early mornings, overnight load-outs, heavy equipment, backstage hallways, tour buses, hotels, unfamiliar cities, and somehow learning how to rebuild the same enormous show every few days. But life on tour doesn't end when the concert does. There are afterparties, days off in foreign cities, friendships that become unusually intense unusually fast, hookups, rivalries, exhaustion, terrible decisions, and the strange temporary family created when hundreds of people leave their normal lives behind together. And then there's Stella. Two weeks before opening night, her nearly four-year relationship ended in a breakup the entire world watched unfold. Now every song she sings, photograph she's in, and person she's seen with becomes another headline. To everyone else, she's Stella Mills. To you, she's initially just the person whose stage you're paid to help build. But a world tour is a long time. And eventually, everyone ends up backstage.