#rainbowsky

Disclaimer: The following response is based on my experience working in the music industry.

So in general, agents have nothing to do with an idol’s health, as they are the ones whose only role is to negotiate contracts for appearances, performances, etc. 

Managers, on the other hand, are completely responsible for the idol - including their health. Idols are overworked and utterly wrecked. There is no question about it. And unfortunately, it is sometimes a case of “dope them up and get them on stage by any means necessary.” 

But the thing that people don’t understand is this: the artist themselves do not want to let fans down, so they actually are the ones who refuse to take care of themselves or cancel a show and will tell the team that they must perform even if they are very sick. 

On more than one occasion, I have had to direct a tour manager to take an artist to a clinic to have an IV run for fluids, vitamins, etc. and to get a shot of prednisone because they were sick. On more than one occasion, this has happened the same day of the show. And on more than one occasion, even though the artist did technically have the right to cancel due to a clause in the contract for illness, the artist refused to do so. 

Artists want to perform because they are usually afraid of letting their fans down - and because they themselves look forward to the performance. So, they actually ask for the IV, for the shot of prednisone. They ask for the medication, if they are sick, because they, like all their predecessors, believe the age-old adage of, “The show must go on.” 

Oftentimes, the team around the artist do care incredibly about the artist, and are also sick too - especially on tours or when working in close proximity, because disease is highly transmissible. So when the artist white-knuckles through it, the team does too. And if the artist insists the show must go on, no matter how sick the team also is, they make sure the proverbial show goes on. 

Good teams make sure that the artist gets as much rest as possible afterwards, and try to make the artist comfortable and take care of them as well as they can. But some teams really don’t care about the artist - the artist could have been working for 3 days straight with no rest, but still not get a break. (In fact, this happened to WYB. He was working without sleep for 3 days and still had to get in costume to film CQL.) This type of back-to-back, interminable work is 100% due to overscheduling - the management schedule events back to back to back without any consideration of rest at all.