Live Events Freelancing, How Much Work Is Too Much Work?

Freelancing has always come with an unspoken rule, if the diary’s empty, you must be doing something wrong.

In industries like live events, production and touring, work is rarely steady. It’s either rammed or a complete ghost town. So when the work comes in, we say yes. Then yes again. And again. Before we know it, the calendar is full, the bank balance looks healthier, and we’re running on caffeine, adrenaline, and the fear of turning work down. But when does being busy stop being a good thing?

Most freelancers don’t have sick pay, holiday pay, or guaranteed income. Every day off feels like money lost. Every job you turn down feels like a missed opportunity, or a risk to future work. So we stack jobs back to back, long builds straight into show weeks, night shifts into early mornings, one contract finishing and another starting the next day. Rest becomes something we’ll take later, and later never really comes.

Burnout rarely shows up all at once. It creeps up on you quietly. Feeling tired all of the time, even after days off, short tempers and less patience than usual, losing enjoyment in work you used to love, making small or silly mistakes you wouldn’t normally make, dreading the next job instead of looking forward to it. In an industry where everyone is expected to operate at full pace, especially in management roles, there’s a lot of pressure to just keep it together. The team relies on you, the show relies on you, so you push through even when your body and head are screaming, telling you to slow down.

There’s no magic number where work suddenly becomes too much. No amount of days or hours that applies to everyone. Too much work looks different to everyone, but the signs are usually the same. You can’t remember the last time you rested without feeling guilty. Time off is spent recovering rather than properly switching off. You’re saying yes because you’re scared to say no. Your health, relationships, or focus start taking a hit. You begin to feel trapped by your own availability.

It’s worth saying out loud, a rest day doesn’t count if you’re sat at home advancing the next show, answering emails, tweaking schedules, or dealing with problems. If you’re still working, even from the sofa, it’s still work. If time off only exists to get you just about functional again, something’s not right.

One positive shift is that burnout is being talked about more openly across the industry and outside, I particularly enjoyed hearing it getting mentioned on national radio. But talking only helps if it actually changes how we work. Rest shouldn’t only happen when you’re completely burnt out, ill, or one bad day away from walking away altogether. By that point, it’s already overdue. Rest needs to be planned properly, blocking out recovery days between contracts, building dark weeks into the year, protecting time off just as hard as booked work, and charging properly so you’re not forced to say yes to everything.

Saying no is uncomfortable. Most freelancers worry that if they turn work down, the phone will stop ringing. But more often than not, clear boundaries build trust and respect. You’re not unreliable for needing rest. You’re not lazy for taking time off. And you’re not failing because you don’t work every possible day, this also opens up a whole other conversation around fees being too low leading to people over working but that’s a conversation for another time…

A full diary and a good month are great, but real success is longevity. Being able to keep doing the work without resenting it. Turning up switched on, present, and proud of what you deliver. Maybe the better question isn’t how much work can I fit in, but how much work can I realistically sustain without burning out.

Everyone’s line is different. The important part is actually having one.

So, where do you draw yours?