OLGA KENIG | INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

For our latest Industry Spotlight, we sit down with Olga Kenig. With over a decade of international touring experience under her belt, Olga seamlessly toggles between the roles of Tour Manager, Production Coordinator, and Merch Manager.

She approaches touring with a background in practical psychology, her company OK on Tour, is grounded in a simple goal: keeping crews healthy and supported on the road. Below, Olga talks about managing crew fatigue, the logistics of pop-up retail, forecasting merch demand, and how the industry can better support women in live music.

Hey Olga! Thank you so much for taking the time to join us and tell your story – can you give our readers a quick introduction.

Hi! I'm Olga and I am a touring TM/PM/PC and sometimes Merchandise Manager. I fell in love with live music at my very first show at 14 and decided there and then that that was going to be my career. Breaking into touring was incredibly difficult back then, barely any courses or apprenticeships were available.

I've been going to at least one show a month, usually more since my early teens and I was always eager to connect and help out bands any way I could, mostly trough Myspace back then. I feel like a dinosaur just saying that. When I managed to actually get my first tour 10 years ago, there was only two female merchandise managers in Europe. The industry changed so much in a very positive way, and I am happy and proud to have been part of the change.

With a background in practical psychology, how does that formal training manifest in your daily management style? Specifically, how do you use those tools to de-escalate the inevitable high-stress moments or when managing crew fatigue during a long run?

I got my degree during Covid downtime, when I finally had time to tackle it. I always wanted to look into counselling training, since so much of what we do on tour in the leading roles influences everyone's wellbeing. I am certainly better equipped to handle artist meltdowns and conflict resolution, may it be a one on one conversation or getting the conflicting parties in a room together and mediating. I am a huge advocate for mental health awareness and try to make my  touring party as comfortable as possible on tour, the main objectives being good sleep/rest and quality nutrition, as well as providing an environment where people are supported and acknowledged. That's why my company is called OK on Tour - I want to make sure everyone is OK, no matter what.

You often toggle between Tour Manager, Production Coordinator, and Merch Manager. In which of these roles do you feel you have the most direct impact on the artist’s bottom line, and how do you prevent the priorities of one role from compromising the others?

If we're talking about the monetary bottom line, then clearly Merchandise Management. Merch is the only role (aside from VIP) that brings in money on a tour. Of course as a TM, PM or PC can impact touring cost and handle settlements and try to streamline as much as I can, but there is not much wiggle room.

If the bottom line is the success of a tour, I think any leading position on a tour sets the tone for everyone's wellbeing, and if your artist is good and your crew is good then the tour is also good. The best tours for me as a person have been the ones where despite being large arena productions, I've managed to create a family feeling.

As a member of Women In Live Music, you’ve seen the industry evolve. What is one specific 'old-school' touring habit you’re happy to see disappearing, and what is the one thing the industry still needs to fix to make touring more sustainable for women?

In my opinion the thing that would have the biggest effect would be the way men act. Women need men to be their allies, to stand up for them, whether they're in the room or not, to call others out for making sexist remarks, to stand up for women when they are being treated wrong and to bring them into rooms where decisions are being made.

I've seen so much support and mentorship in women-only groups. In open forums as soon as anyone, male or female ask a “rookie question” they get made fun of. This territorial old-school behaviour doesn't benefit anyone but only makes for people that are likely to make more and potentially dangerous mistakes, because they are afraid to ask.

The AC/DC 2024 Tour featured significant pop-up store activations involving complex location scouting and contract negotiations. What are the unique logistical hurdles of moving a tour’s 'retail footprint' out of the venue and into the city streets, and how does that affect the overall tour settlement?

In 2024 we worked with a mobile sales trailer. We wanted to create a cool experience for the fans where they can hang out in a beer garden, have some drinks and food and enjoy their favourite band while they shop. There were SO many challenges: Having truck access to position the trailer, having power and internet to run the POS, finding a location with good accessibility that is far away from the venue but convenient, getting all the right permits in different countries and cities… I was quite relieved when I was told that for 2025 we were going to put the popups into clubs and stores. This is still quite a challenging feat, but it doesn't involve quite as many hurdles.

Pop-ups seem to be the new trend now, I've seen a huge amount coming up, even for arena and club tours. I think it has to be done right. If the incentive is there for fans to go to the popup, then it can be very beneficial, especially if you don´t have to pay a concession company up to 28% of your sales.

One of the hardest things to learn is how much stock to actually order. What is your formula for forecasting merch demand? How do you balance the risk of running out of a popular item versus the death of having too much unsold inventory at the end of a run.

You will always have leftover stock and you will run out of something. Projections will never be 100% accurate. I think the best way is to limit what you produce. No tour needs ten t-shirts or five hoodies. Streamlined product lines with a few limited high price designs, so your customers are not stuck in decision paralysis over six slightly different tour shirts. If you are able to produce a certain amount and then reevaluate what you will need for the rest of the tour and adjust your numbers - great. This is often not economical.

Attention to detail and experience is key. There is vast differences between online retail and live retail, Spanish crowds and British ones. But even if you acknowledge all of the tiny details, you will never sell the last shirt to the last customer, so expectation management is also key. 

Thank you for joining us and sharing your knowledge with our readers, we greatly appreciate it. Where can people get in touch with you?

I can be reached via my email contact@okontour.com.

Thank you for having me 😊