Live Nation to launch ’rider challenge’ reality show

There’s an oft-told story about how Van Halen had it written into their rider that they required a bowl of M&Ms in their dressing room with the brown ones removed. Well, thanks to The Rider Challenge, a new reality television competition from Live Nation, twelve lucky US contestants will be the ones furiously scrambling through packets of M&Ms, removing the offending items.

Despite sorting artists’ riders being among the most thankless tasks in the entertainment industry, Live Nation have teamed with Ford for the online competition, in which six teams of two will race to sort an artist’s rider before they are scheduled to appear backstage.

Kid Cudi, Fall Out Boy, the Lumineers, Fitz & The Tantrums and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros are among the artists that could be hurling bottles of Evian and non-kosher meats at entrants, who are in the running to win a Ford Fiesta, and an all-access pass to all Live Nation shows for a year.

The series starts September 30. A preview is available here. Oh, and for the record, Van Halen’s M&Ms request wasn’t simple petulance; their on-stage setup was extremely technical, and required different power settings and the like, which could prove fatal if not executed properly. Therefore, the brown M&Ms stipulation was an easy way to ensure that their rider has been read fully and implemented correctly. Brown M&Ms in the dressing rooms meant their requests hadn’t been carried out completely.