The Quiet Power of Asking for Less: Inside Alicia Matthew’s Backstage List
In touring, the rider is usually where the fantasy gets typed out. A certain brand of water. A fruit platter arranged just so. A couch that nobody will actually sit on. Alicia Matthew’s rider is not that. It is three lines long, and two of them could be handled by a venue’s existing staff in under ten minutes. The third is a towel.
That’s not a typo, and it’s not a bit. Matthew’s backstage list has stayed deliberately small through her 2026 dates, and the more you look at it, the more it reads less like a demand list and more like a quiet contract: I’ll ask only for what helps me do the show, and you won’t have to send someone on a wild-goose chase across town.
A Rider You Can Read in Ten Seconds
Most riders are built for insurance—covering every possible preference so nothing goes wrong. Matthew’s is built for speed. The entire thing fits on an index card, and that’s the point. A rider that can be read at a glance is a rider that can be fulfilled without a meeting.
Here is the list, plainly:
- A clean electric kettle.
- A small box fan.
- A stack of clean, fragrance-free hand towels.
That’s it. No snacks, no alcohol, no specific water brand, no special furniture. Matthew travels with her own tea and a ceramic mug, so the kettle is the only hot-water ask. The fan is for dressing rooms that run warm or stuffy—especially in older venues where the backstage area was clearly an afterthought. The towels are for hands and faces, and the fragrance-free detail matters because strong detergent smells can linger in a small room.
None of those items require a special trip. They are things a venue either already owns or can source from the closet down the hall. That is not an accident.
The Labor Behind a Request
Every line on a rider costs someone time. A specific brand of water means a run to the store. A fruit platter means kitchen prep. A particular chair means someone hauling furniture up a flight of stairs. None of that is automatically unreasonable—some artists need specific things to perform—but it is labor, and labor adds up.
Matthew’s list can be handled by a venue staffer in a few minutes. That matters most at the smaller rooms: the converted theater in Brooklyn, the club in Austin with one shared dressing room, the Chicago venue where the loading door is also the kitchen door. In those places, a short rider is not just polite. It is the difference between a smooth load-in and a stressed one.
Venue staff notice. A production manager who has spent the afternoon sourcing a specific brand of hummus is a production manager who has less time for soundcheck. Matthew’s rider removes that errand. It says, without saying it: I assume you know how to make a room work.
Hospitality Is a Two-Way Street
There is a version of this story where the short rider is a flex—look how low-maintenance the artist is. That’s not quite right. Matthew’s list is less about proving a point than about protecting the show. Every extra request creates a small decision, and small decisions pile up. By the time she’s due onstage, she wants her attention on the set list, not on whether the dressing room has the right kind of sparkling water.
The list also makes her easier to book, which is its own kind of career strategy. Promoters remember the artists who don’t turn a Tuesday night into a scavenger hunt. That reputation travels faster than any press release.
But the real test is the room itself. A short rider leaves space for the people who make the room run—the stagehands, the front-of-house staff, the person who has to reset the dressing room before the next act. Hospitality works both ways. Matthew’s list is small enough that it doesn’t crowd anyone else out.
What the List Doesn’t Mean
It would be easy to turn this into a lecture about how every artist should ask for less. That’s not the point. Some riders include medical needs, accessibility requirements, dietary restrictions, or cultural accommodations. A rider can be a health document. It can be a safety plan. It can be the difference between an artist being able to perform and not.
Matthew’s list is personal, not a moral standard. She doesn’t ask for much because she doesn’t need much backstage. The kettle, the fan, and the towels are the three things that actually do something for her. The rest is noise.
The Tote-Bag Test
If there’s a philosophy behind the rider, it’s this: if the whole ask can’t be carried in by one person in one trip, it probably isn’t about the show anymore. Matthew’s list passes that test easily. It leaves room for the real work—soundcheck, the pre-show pause, the line after the set—without turning the backstage area into a second production.
On a tour, the small choices are the ones that add up. Three items on a page won’t make a headline. But they do make a room easier to walk into, for everyone. And for an artist who has built a career on paying attention to the details, that’s not minimalism for its own sake. It’s just good manners, written down.
