Tech Volunteers

The Ark takes pride in its reputation for consistently great-sounding performances. We achieve these results with a largely volunteer sound production crew.

Ready to wear a lot of hats?

Our volunteer tech crew is dedicated to creating great sounding live concerts and making artists feel welcome and comfortable. The tech volunteers wear many hats. Most nights, a tech volunteer serves as loader, stagehand, and sound engineer. Our tech crew is responsible for the production of live sound including artist load-in, stage set up, sound check, live show, and tear down. Our tech crew may be largely volunteer, but they provide exceptional live sound experiences for our artists and audiences.

Eligibility for our volunteer tech crew requires that:

  • You are 18+ years old
  • You have extensive live sound experience including use of a digital sound console, are able to read stage plots, input lists, understand technical riders
  • You have a good ear for music and are able to interpret artist requests for adjustments to the sound (vocals, instruments, monitor mixes, audience mix, etc)
  • You are available to volunteer a minimum of 3 shows per month and can commit to each show from load in to load out (approximately 8 consecutive hours per show), most shows begin to load in around 5:00pm
  • You are punctual and will arrive ahead of artist load in time to make sure the stage is ready
  • You are committed to long term involvement with the organization
  • You can take direction from our lead techs and traveling artist crew
  • You are friendly and are able to remain calm when faced with obstacles
  • You are comfortable handling heavy cases and equipment safely
  • You are respectful of the artist and traveling crew’s personal space

Still interested? Please fill out the tech application form.

You will then be invited to the next tech information session to learn more about the volunteer commitment and responsibilities. These are scheduled about four times per year. If you join our crew after the information session, you’ll start by serving as an assistant tech to our lead techs until you are able to handle shows on your own.