DANCING With the Stars tour staffer Adam Powell has claimed in an exclusive interview with The U.S. Sun that he was fired after grueling weeks working on the multi-city show with low pay.
The DWTS tour, Dancing With the Stars Live 2024, kicked off on January 11 in Richmond, Virginia with 64 dates lined up across the country.
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Ten days into the tour, after the Verona, New York performance, music director and sound engineer Adam was given the shocking news that they had decided to let him go.
On January 21 around 11:30pm, after packing up his gear, he was told in person by a DWTS tour production manager that he was fired, and he claims he was not given a real reason.
Adam explained to The U.S. Sun, “Here’s part of what made me so angry is that the production company [Faculty Inc.] never called me directly.
“They basically sent a message to our production manager on the road… and she didn’t have a lot of details about why they fired me, but the only reason they actually gave was that there was feedback being given from the dancers about their sound on stage about how sometimes they couldn’t hear certain songs or certain songs were too loud.”
Without giving specific names of the dancers who had complained about the sound, Adam said that it was a “typical” situation that happened after every show.
He continued, “The production company was saying that I was refusing to incorporate those notes and make changes to help the dancers hear better, which is ridiculous. It was just an excuse.
“It was kind of a toss off thing. They didn’t want to deal with it, but they actually really, for the most part, did not give the production manager a reason. They just said I was fired.”
He alleges it might have been over a “more personal” reason, but still claims it was “very cowardly” on Faculty’s part to handle it the way that they did given their long working relationship.
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Faculty Inc. is not the same company that works on DWTS, rather it is BBC Studios Los Angeles that produces the ABC and Disney+ show.
19-HOUR WORK DAYS
The Utah-based staffer had been part of Faculty for 11 tours – seven of which were DWTS.
This was the second DWTS tour he actually got to be on the road with and be there every part of the way.
Rehearsals were for two weeks in December 2023 and then everyone arrived in Virginia on January 6 to begin technical rehearsals.
His role was to edit all the music used in the show and put together the sound design and programming.
During each live show, he then worked as the front of house sound engineer where he was in charge of mixing the sound for the live audience.
Adam was part of the 12 staffers who traveled on the tour bus to each city and was there each step of the way.
He was given a weekly pay check and when he was let go, they had booked him a flight home.
Without disclosing his salary, he did say that the pay for his job was “lower than the standard” for shows similar to DWTS.
The U.S. Sun previously reported that, meanwhile, ticket prices can go as high as $1,500, depending on the venue.
Adam went on to explain that they worked about 100-hour weeks and that everybody was “overworked.”
“The crew is working much, much longer hours than normal.
“It’s a bigger set that takes longer to load in, longer to construct and longer to load out,” he reasoned.
“For the first two weeks of the tour, the stage manager typically works the longest hours. This guy would get up before six every morning… and then would be on duty typically until 1:30 or 2 o’clock in the morning the next day.
“So we’re talking about 19 hour days, six days in a row, and then sleeping on a bus for three, four hours and getting up and doing it all again. And almost the entire crew was working these types of hours.”
He continued, “That’s a death march. It’s not possible to keep it up for three months. And I think that other people are going to flame out. I predict that.”
‘INTEGRAL’ PART OF SHOW
When asked if he was “blindsided” by the firing, he said that he was, but also picked up on some “tension” between him and the production company.
“Going back to a week and a half before I actually got fired, there had been some tension.
“… So it had crossed my mind, what if they get really upset and they just fire me?” he told The U.S. Sun.
“But I never thought it would happen because I was so integral to making the show run smoothly. I had actually kind of designed my job so that the show would just revolve around what I did.”
Adam continued, “I just think I’m the best at doing this kind of thing, and I wanted it to be on me. It’s a whole lot of responsibility.
“I didn’t want it to be on anybody else who didn’t care about the show as much as I did.
“And so I was shocked because I just thought that there was no way they would think they could do it without me.”
Adam alleges that since his firing, they have hired someone new, but he’s mostly a video editor and he “doesn’t really know much about mixing sound for a live audience.”
LAWSUIT IN THE WORKS?
Despite losing out on weeks-worth of pay – the last performance is on March 27, 2024, in Los Angeles – Adam said that he does not have plans to sue the DWTS tour or Faculty.
He revealed, “I’m not going to bring any lawsuit. This kind of thing happens all the time in our industry and probably in a lot of industries, and there’s definitely no legal basis to bring action because they would just simply say, ‘Hey, look man, his performance wasn’t up to par.’
“And they get to determine what performance is up to par or not, and that’s all they have to say. So a lawsuit would go nowhere.”
However, he plans on bringing awareness to his firing and how he was treated so that “fans would pay attention.”
He shared, “I was always the tour’s biggest fan when I worked on it.
“And I worked myself to the bone trying to make it better every moment of every day when I was on the job.
“And there were a lot of ideas that I had based on my professional experience that could make this tour better, a better production, more tightly run, and a better experience for the fans.
“And those are ideas that I was planning to bring out to them, but I didn’t get the chance. So now maybe they’ll listen if I bring them out in public.”
In a series of Instagram videos, Adam shared his side of his story with his followers following the abrupt news.
While DWTS tour dancer Gleb Savchenko liked one of his videos, a former DWTS pro dancer, Kateryna Klishyna, commented, “I’m so so sorry Adam! You are [a] true professional.”
DANCERS’ SUPPORT
The pro dancers on the tour include Gleb, Alan Bersten, Brandon Armstrong, Britt Stewart, Daniella Karagach, Pasha Pashkov, Emma Slater and Rylee Arnold.
Artem Chigvintsev, Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy are performing in select cities.
Meanwhile, the special guests stars, also performing in select cities, include season 32 winner Xochitl Gomez as well as Charity Lawson, Harry Jowsey, and DWTS co-host Julianne Hough.
Adam told The U.S. Sun that some dancers from the tour have reached out to him since his firing.
“Not everybody, but several. And the ones I talked to really just were also shocked and saddened,” he shared.
“I’ve worked with them now on seven tours [and it’s] almost the same cast every year. There’s been some rotation in and out, but we know each other quite well, and I do consider them friends.”
The U.S. Sun has reached out to Faculty Inc. and the DWTS tour rep for comment.
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