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Northeast Parkway Restrictions: Where a Tour Truck or Trailer Cannot Go

Northeast Parkway Restrictions: Where a Tour Truck or Trailer Cannot Go

Can you drive a Sprinter with a trailer on the Merritt? No, and it fails twice. Road by road on where a van, trailer, box truck or 26-footer can and cannot legally go in New York, Connecticut and Boston, with the clearance numbers and what to put in the advance.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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Tour Trucking by the Numbers: The 2026 Stat Sheet

Tour Trucking by the Numbers: The 2026 Stat Sheet

A sourced reference sheet for anyone budgeting or booking trucks this year: mid-year touring grosses and show counts, record spot rates, diesel, the CDL and English-proficiency capacity squeeze, cargo theft losses per incident, and two numbers from our own load plans.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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More Articles

Carnet the Rig or Rent the Backline: The Europe Math

Carnet the Rig or Rent the Backline: The Europe Math

Ship your own rig on an ATA carnet or rent backline in Europe? The carnet paperwork runs about $665 on a $75,000 rig while rental stacks per day per show. Here is where the lines cross, with real numbers, and why the hybrid usually wins.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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One Show, Nine Rooms: The Advance Behind Mulaney Takes Manhattan

One Show, Nine Rooms: The Advance Behind Mulaney Takes Manhattan

John Mulaney is playing nine NYC venues in nine nights, from a 150-seat basement to Madison Square Garden. What that run looks like from the production side, and why a tiered master pack is the only sane way to advance it.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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Your Carnet Is Still Paper: US Tours in Digital-Only Europe

Your Carnet Is Still Paper: US Tours in Digital-Only Europe

Two months after the EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland went digital-only, US carnets are still paper and USCIB has quietly dropped its second-half-2026 target date. What that means for a fall European leg, and why your General List and your load plan should come from one inventory.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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Your Monitor World Is About to Shrink

Your Monitor World Is About to Shrink

Sennheiser's Spectera just ran a full arena tour: two 1U base stations feeding 28 bodypacks at 96 kHz. When one rack unit replaces a wall of IEM transmitters and combiners, the monitor rig's truck footprint shrinks with it. Here's the packing math.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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What a Festival Actually Pays For, By the Truck

What a Festival Actually Pays For, By the Truck

Heritage Live cancelled its entire 2026 season over supplier, artist and crew costs. Trucks are the part of a festival budget you commit to before a ticket scans, and a multi-act bill is where the count doubles. How to pack the site instead of the acts.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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What One More Truck Costs You This Fall

What One More Truck Costs You This Fall

Freight rates are near record highs, the capacity index just hit a 43-month high, diesel jumped 34 cents in a week, and the driver pool is thinning under the new CDL rule. What that actually means when a production manager asks for one more trailer in October.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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Standard Road Case Sizes: The Missing Reference Sheet

Standard Road Case Sizes: The Missing Reference Sheet

The touring case sizes nobody writes down: quarter, third, and half pack footprints, cable trunk and workbox dimensions, and the 90-inch vs 96-inch trailer math (45-inch half packs, the 24x48 grid) that decides whether your pack rolls tight.

Michael Keith Lewis
Michael Keith Lewis
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