(Video Link)
The 80s band Van Halen famously (or infamously) had a rider in its contract which required promoters to provide the band a large number of M&Ms in the dressing room. But brown M&Ms were forbidden. If the band found a single brown M&M, the promoter forfeited his earnings. Why? David Lee Roth explains in this video.
It was actually a clever test. Van Halen stage shows were elaborate productions. To get ready, a promoter had follow a set of lengthy, complex instructions provided in the contract. The brown M&M provision was buried, at random, among these instructions. If the band members went backstage and found brown M&Ms, that meant that the promoter had not read the instructions and there were potential problems with the show.
-via reddit
As for the rider...Seems like a stupid way to get things done. Just get on with the show as best as you can and never work with imcompetent people again.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/dick-cheneys-suite-demands
Do they eat the M&M's. I am not sure I would want to eat M&M's that have been handled enough to exclude one color. Not to mention, I can picture the poor guy/gal doing the job, saying "Here you go mister big-time singer" as they rub the M&M's on their arm pits (or worse!!!).
I seriously can't count the number of times we'd show up to a venue and we'd have no hotel reservation- which they agreed to set up in the contract they'd signed and mailed back to us two months earlier. Other times they'd have nowhere for our people to change costumes, or no electricity near where the sound equipment would go. All this stuff is included in the rider.
With a show the size of Van Halen's, there are specifications for things like how much weight the mounting points for the light rigging needs to be able to hold, or catering demands designed to accommodate somebody's severe food allergy. This is literally life-or-death stuff.
The bowl of M&Ms may not have served as a guarantee that everything was to spec, but it was proof that the person responsible for making those guarantees was AWARE of the specs.
Most seem to make sense. If the venue is not willing to follow one rider in the contract, there is a very good chance of them skipping something else.
Marilyn Manson once played our arena, and catering spent half the day looking for "organic Gummi Bears." BTW they do exist and I happened to know where to find them.
Some riders are pure crazy. Neil Diamond had to meet and approve all personnel assigned to guard the secured walkway from the dressing room to the stage.If he saw someone he had not seen before, he could cancel the concert. He also demanded that no one could be in or near the seating areas while he warmed up. We had to hang blackout curtains and post guards at all the entries. The skybox waiters and AV booth staff had to vacate their workplaces until he was done.
;o)
But what do they do if they discover a brown M&M?
My guess is they have a guy walking around the stage inspecting things (trying to find out what's wrong).
I don't know and this is just me, but I'm not putting my life on the line based on the fact of whether or not there's a brown M&M amongst the other M&M's.