From Wembley to Florence: what we learned about Digital Carnets on tour

Produced with thanks to Stagetruck, expert providers of tour logistics.

At Business West, we work closely with our international trade customers to understand not just the documentation they need, but how that documentation works in the real world.

That is particularly important as Digital Carnets continue to roll out.

So, when the opportunity came up for Faith Batten, our Carnet Claims Lead, to join Stagetruck, for one leg of the My Chemical Romance European tour, it was a chance to see first-hand how ATA Carnets – and Digital Carnets in particular – fit into a live, high-pressure touring operation.

Faith travelled with the Stagetruck team from Wembley to Florence, transporting equipment, seeing customs processes in action and getting a much closer look at the pressures touring logistics teams face.

Over to Faith.

My journey started at Wembley on Saturday 11th July, where My Chemical Romance had just finished their show. For thousands of fans, the night was over. For the Stagetruck team, it was only just beginning.

I’d joined a fleet of around 20 trucks that were preparing to move the production from Wembley to Florence for the next leg of the tour, and I quickly realised just how enormous an operation this was.

The trucks drove directly into the stadium once the audience had left so the equipment could be dismantled and loaded. The truck I travelled in was carrying only the right-hand side of the stage speakers and amps – another truck had the left-hand side – which gives you some idea of the scale involved.

The convoy eventually left Wembley at around 2.30am on Sunday morning and headed straight for Dover. By then, I’d already had a slightly unexpected start to the trip as I’d ended up helping with some complicated USA issued Carnets backstage.

It was an early indication that on tour, what you expect to happen and what actually happens can be two very different things.

Carnets in action

At Dover, we used Motis Freight Clearance Centre to process the Carnets on the UK side. The experience was efficient and straightforward. The paperwork was processed in around 30 minutes, which meant much of the convoy was able to catch an earlier ferry than originally planned.

The Stagetruck drivers were incredibly experienced and had done a huge amount of preparation in advance. Lee, the lead driver, had written detailed notes within the Carnets linking them to GMRs and Digital Carnet information, helping customs teams understand which goods and vehicles related to which documents.

But not all of the trucks were able to travel together. Some of the drivers had to follow a different process for their ferry bookings, so Lee stayed behind with them – taking all of the Carnets with him. Once the first group reached Calais, we had to wait for the rest to catch up.
Ferry image

Then came French customs.

The checks were much more thorough and took significantly longer. Digital Carnets were checked alongside paper back-ups and other supporting documentation, and the process took around an hour and a half once the full convoy was together.

That delay immediately put more pressure on the schedule. And that was one of the first things that really struck me: when you’re moving a major touring production hundreds of miles to the next venue, a customs delay isn’t just an inconvenience. Every minute matters.

Life on the road

After Calais, we headed further into France. I very quickly learned that touring logistics has its own rhythm.

Drivers work around strict legally mandated rest periods, often travelling through the night and sleeping during the day. At one point I slept from around 11am until 8pm, which felt completely bizarre at first, but by then normal body-clock rules had pretty much gone out of the window.

I also discovered that Sublime Radio NL  is a very good soundtrack for overnight driving, and I came away with the impression that touring driver life relies on a fairly formidable combination of coffee, cigarettes, patience and a lot of waiting around.

One truck in the convoy even had its own nickname. Dave was driving an older white vehicle affectionately known as “the washing machine”, and as we headed towards the Alps there was genuine discussion about how well it was going to cope with the climb.

Through the Alps and into Italy

On Monday evening, we left our rest stop near Cluses and headed towards the Mont Blanc tunnel. This was probably one of the most memorable parts of the journey. The Alpine scenery was incredible. I knew mountains were big, obviously, but seeing them from the cab of a heavily loaded truck gave me a whole new appreciation of the scale of them.

Getting a fleet of touring trucks through the mountains was not without its challenges, though. There was concern about whether some vehicles – particularly “the washing machine” – would manage the steep climb, but everyone made it through and we crossed into Italy at around 9.16pm.

From there, the plan was to continue towards Florence. Simple enough. In theory.

We were supposed to head towards Milan, Bologna and then Florence, but road closures forced us towards Genoa instead.
Then, once we got to Genoa, more roads were closed. We spent around two hours trying to find a workable route out of the city before eventually getting back on course.

By this stage, the touring schedule had become even tighter.

The original plan had been to reach Florence on Wednesday morning, but production had changed the timetable and brought the deadline forward, asking the trucks to arrive by 6am on Tuesday instead. So every delay mattered.

Arrival in Florence

After driving through the night, we finally reached Florence on Tuesday morning. We arrived at the Visarno Hippodrome at around 8.30am after a journey that had included customs checks, ferry crossings, overnight driving, daytime sleeping, mountain roads, road closures and several last-minute changes.

Ironically, despite all the urgency to get there, the trucks that had arrived earlier were still waiting to unload. That was another useful reminder that international touring involves a huge number of moving parts – and the Carnet is only one of them.

FAITH VIDEO

What did Faith’s journey teach us about Digital Carnets?

One of the most valuable parts of Faith’s trip was hearing first-hand what experienced touring drivers thought about Carnets in practice. She heard frustrations around how Carnets are presented, how long customs processing can take and the limitations of relying on one person to manage paperwork across multiple vehicles.

What was particularly interesting was that many of these are exactly the kinds of challenges Digital Carnets are designed to help address.
But the trip also highlighted something equally important.

Businesses operating under intense time pressure are understandably cautious about change. For a touring logistics team, the question is not simply whether a new digital process works in theory.

If a Carnet process causes a serious delay, the consequences can be much bigger: equipment may not arrive, a production schedule may slip and, ultimately, an artist may not be able to perform as planned.
That makes reliability, flexibility and confidence every bit as important as speed.

How Business West works

Business West works with around 1,000 international trade clients, including some larger logistics businesses such as Stagetruck. For us, strong customer relationships are about more than providing a service.
They are about understanding how our customers work, the pressures they face and where those challenges might create opportunities for us to support them better.

Faith’s trip gave us something we simply cannot get from a process map or a desk-based conversation: a first-hand view of how Carnets sit within the reality of international touring.

It helped us understand what works, where friction still exists and what customers need from the next phase of digitalisation.

Because we don’t just issue Carnets. We understand the journey.

And the more closely we work alongside the businesses using them, the better placed we are to help keep international trade moving.