A stagehand may not ever experience the blinding light of a spotlight or hear the applause of an adoring audience, but without them, a show would collapse. While the stars of the show take their bows, the stagehands do the less glamorous work that helps the show go on.
Stagehands do many things, from building sets to moving sets during a show to cleaning up after a show. They also assist specialists with installing lights, managing sound equipment, helping actors during costume changes, and more. While some positions require an associate's or bachelor's degree, experience in the fast-paced world of productions is more important.
A stagehand needs to be prepared to do a little bit of everything and to work long hours during rehearsals and a show's run. It is a hard, thankless job that requires a lot of physical endurance and hard work. But for many stagehands, the joy of seeing a show move an audience is worth all the work.
How to Become a Stage Hand
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a stage hand. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.52 an hour? That's $32,284 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 156,200 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Stage Hand Do
There are certain skills that many stage hands have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed communication skills, computer skills and manual dexterity.
How To Become a Stage Hand
If you're interested in becoming a stage hand, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 39.5% of stage hands have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.1% of stage hands have master's degrees. Even though some stage hands have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a stage hand. When we researched the most common majors for a stage hand, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on stage hand resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a stage hand. In fact, many stage hand jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many stage hands also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or internship.
Stage Hand Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of technician you might progress to a role such as team leader eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title co-owner.
Average Salary for a Stage Hand
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Stage Hand
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 18.0% of stage hands listed venues on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and computer skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Stage Hand Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Stage Hand templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Stage Hand resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Stage Hand Demographics
Stage Hand Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among stage hands, 20.1% of them are women, while 79.9% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among stage hands is White, which makes up 60.6% of all stage hands.
- The most common foreign language among stage hands is Spanish at 60.8%.
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How Do Stage Hand Rate Their Jobs?
Top Stage Hand Employers
Most Common Employers For Stage Hand
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rabobank N.A. | $65,672 | $31.57 | 8 |
| 2 | Peoria Civic Center | $47,605 | $22.89 | 7 |
| 3 | Sound | $35,256 | $16.95 | 12 |
| 4 | Upstage | $34,522 | $16.60 | 80 |
| 5 | IMC Inc | $34,522 | $16.60 | 10 |
| 6 | Desert Services Intl Inc | $34,522 | $16.60 | 7 |
| 7 | Rhino Labs | $34,442 | $16.56 | 24 |
| 8 | Live Nation Entertainment | $34,336 | $16.51 | 57 |
| 9 | Light | $34,309 | $16.49 | 6 |
| 10 | NRG Energy | $34,138 | $16.41 | 11 |