Earl Neal, production manager and founder of TourNex
WHO BUILT IT

Built on the road by Earl Neal.

Production manager. More than thirty years of touring, from the monitor desk to running the whole show.

30+
years on the road
2
Parnelli Awards
100+
person touring parties
Arena, stadium, festival
domestic and international
THE ROAD

I came up on the audio side. I mixed monitors and front of house for country, rock and pop artists, in arenas, stadiums and festivals, here and overseas. Somewhere along the way I started running the whole tour instead of just the stage mix.

Today I manage production for Jason Aldean, and I have since 2021. That means advancing every show, owning the production budget and the vendor contracts, and handling the trucks, buses, hotels and daily crew paperwork. Every summer I also work CMA Fest at Nissan Stadium, advancing artist production for the main stage as the CMA's representative. I have done that since 2012.

I have led touring parties of more than a hundred people on multi-million dollar budgets, with full routing responsibility. In 2015 I won the Parnelli Award for Production Manager of the Year. I won one in 2006 for Monitor Mixer of the Year. I have also been nominated for Production Manager of the Year at the CMA Touring Awards in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

WHY I BUILT TOURNEX

I was frustrated with how bad the solutions in the market had gotten. Each one handled a slice of the job, and none of them were laid out the way a production manager thinks.

I wanted a program built around the way the work actually runs: advance the building, build the day, print the sheet, settle the night. I wanted everything in one location, not spread across multiple apps. So I built it, around the work I do every day.

Earl Neal in a hard hat and safety vest high in a stadium during a load in

Where I have worked

Production and tour manager
  • Jason Aldean
  • Peter Frampton
  • Kid Rock
  • The Band Perry
  • Patty Loveless
Monitor and front of house engineer
  • Toby Keith
  • Aerosmith
  • Rod Stewart
  • Andrea Bocelli
  • Boz Scaggs
  • Engelbert Humperdinck
  • Gary Allan
  • Brad Paisley
  • Lenny Kravitz
Earlier touring
  • Chely Wright
  • Wade Hayes
  • Kevin Sharp
  • Billy Joe Shaver
  • Sara Evans
  • Lonestar

These names are Earl's work history. The artists do not endorse or sponsor TourNex.

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