Borders as Production Risk: Administrative Complexity in Cross-Border Live-Event Touring in Europe

Studies of live-event risk usually look at what happens at the venue: crowds, weather, technical failure, security. For productions touring across Europe, much of the risk comes earlier and from elsewhere. It sits in visa and work-permit procedures, customs formalities for equipment, transport regulation, and tax and social-security obligations that differ from country to country. This paper argues that administrative complexity should be treated as a production risk on the same level as operational hazards, not as background bureaucracy. It draws on European policy research on artists' mobility, recent parliamentary and sector evidence, event risk-management literature, and organizational-resilience theory, and adds reflective practice from producing concerts and festivals with teams from outside the European Union. The paper proposes a Cross-Border Production Risk Map with four domains: people, equipment, transport, and fiscal and social obligations. It then recommends practices for building these domains into tour planning. The analysis is particularly relevant to Switzerland, which takes part in the Schengen area without being a member of the European Union and therefore sits where several regulatory regimes meet.