Q&A with Robert Dugan, Doja Cat's Production Manager

Had you worked with Adlib before this project?

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I hadn’t worked with Adlib personally before this project, but I’d heard great things from a number of trusted colleagues. My Production Coordinator, Alex Feld, had worked with Adlib while production managing another client and told me it was one of the first times he’d experienced a crew that worked so cohesively together and was genuinely eager to support one another.

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From the start, I immediately understood what he meant. There was a willingness across the entire Adlib team to step up and help, regardless of whether something technically fell within their scope. Bringing a tour into Europe from overseas, having that level of regional support and knowing there was a team behind us that we could rely on made a huge difference.

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What made Adlib the right partner for this particular project?

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Taking a production of this scale throughout Europe requires a strong regional partner, someone who understands the local environments and venues, but who can also react quickly and solve problems without everything needing to work its way up the chain.

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A great example is that one of my crew leads recently mentioned to me that a few fixtures had started behaving inconsistently mid-tour. Adlib swapped them out and handled it. I didn’t even know it had happened until afterward.

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I’m sure there were plenty of other things throughout the tour that were handled in exactly the same way without ever reaching my desk, and that’s actually one of the highest compliments I can give a production partner. That’s what I look for in a great production partner, experienced people who identify problems, make good decisions and solve them before they ever have an opportunity to impact the show.

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How would you describe your experience of working with the Adlib team throughout the project?

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Adlib were incredibly patient and collaborative partners. Although we had already taken versions of this show around the world as fly dates, we were still developing and changing elements of the production right up until the last moment.
One great example was the horseshoe LED element around the band. Adlib worked closely with TAIT and our team to develop a solution before we arrived for full production rehearsals. The teams connected early, built and tested a sample, identified potential hurdles, and implemented changes on a smaller scale before committing to the full production build.

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That kind of proactive problem-solving is extremely valuable. Every issue you can identify before you get into a full production rehearsal saves time, protects the budget and allows the creative and production teams to focus on making the show better rather than troubleshooting something that could have been solved weeks earlier.

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Were there any particular moments, challenges or aspects of the delivery that stood out to you?

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What stood out most wasn’t necessarily one particular moment, it was the consistency of the support throughout the entire tour.

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Whether it was the early development and testing with TAIT, equipment needing attention mid-tour, or the countless smaller challenges that naturally happen when moving a production through multiple countries and venues, the response was always solution-oriented.

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There was never a sense of, “That’s not our problem.” It was much more, “What do we need to do to make this work?” That mentality is incredibly valuable on a touring production.

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What do you think Adlib brought to the project that made a meaningful difference?

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Adlib brought a tremendous amount of experience without bringing ego with it. It didn’t matter what the task was, if something needed to be solved, people stepped in and helped solve it.

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I really appreciated the professionalism, the willingness to put in the long hours when necessary, and the genuine desire from the team to make the tour successful.

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That aligns closely with one of my own philosophies. I always say we have some of the best jobs in the world, we get paid to travel around the world and create experiences that make people happy. We should work incredibly hard and hold ourselves to a very high standard, but we should also enjoy doing it.

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That spirit was present with the Adlib team throughout Europe. They cared about the work, they cared about the people around them, and you could tell they were passionate about delivering a great show every day.

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Looking at the finished result, what are you most pleased with?

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Ultimately, we had a very successful European tour. We played to incredible audiences, had a number of sold-out dates, and delivered the show consistently without significant production delays.

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With a production of this scale moving through different countries and venues, that kind of consistency doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from having experienced people making good decisions every day, often behind the scenes.

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Adlib was an integral part of that success. They gave our touring team a partner we could trust, provided an extremely high level of technical and operational support, and helped us deliver the show at the standard we wanted every night.

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For me as Production Manager, being able to trust the people around you is everything. Adlib earned that trust very quickly, and I would absolutely be happy to work with them again.