How many M&Ms were lost?

The legend of the brown M&Ms
Until the end of time, touring artists’ backstage hospitality riders will be associated with — say it all together! — Van Halen and their notorious “remove all the brown M&Ms” clause during their tours in the 1980s.

If that seems ridiculous, the band has always stated the provision was in the rider to ensure that promoters actually read and followed their requirements. They did so for the best reasons: Their visionary stage lighting called for sophisticated electrical circuitry beyond the accepted norm in many halls and auditoriums, and their unequalled and complex stage sets similarly demanded higher-than-normal stress-bearing support. If, then, the band got backstage and saw brown M&Ms, they knew the rider hadn’t been read and there could be safety issues as the promoter might not have bothered with the technical minutiae since the contract was unread.

Regardless, a little research and math tells us that there would be approximately 2,400 M&Ms in VH’s requisite five-pound bag. The candy company’s color distribution at the time called for 30 percent of those pieces to be brown — meaning that about 800 M&M’s had to be removed before each show. On the 1982-3 “Hide Your Sheep” tour — a fairly typical junket — Van Halen played 98 dates. If each arena staff was rigorous, that means about 78,400 brown M&Ms were orphaned over the course of the whole tour to guarantee safety for Van Halen and their crew.