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Several years ago, while out on tour with some lovely dinosaurs, we got robbed at a random hotel in the middle of nowhere in California.

We were doing a children’s theater tour with about a dozen of us in a 15 passenger van, a Penske, and a midsize car.

After several days of one nighters, driving ridiculous should-be-totally-illegal distances after crazy long hours, one of my cast members got sick and had to go to the emergency room. I wound up taking her and when we got back from the ER around 4:00 AM, maybe I didn’t lock the van, which had the majority of the cast and crew’s main suitcases in them since we were only in the hotel for a single night.

You see, a common thing on these kind of tours is to have your little one/two night go bag and then your big your suitcase. Big suitcase doesn’t always have to get dragged into the hotel then.

At least, that was true before this story, by the end of it you will see why I’m a “suitcase in the hotel” every night kind of gal and why my compatriots from that same tour still probably are to this day as well.

And, a tiny bit in my defense, maybe I did lock the van. None of us know. The sick cast member swears she heard me lock it. I do not feel confident in that assessment at all and, honestly, the odds are real good I was so tired that I forgot. I do still hold on to that tiny shred of hope she provided to this day though.

Either way, locked or unlocked is not an open invitation to be robbed.

The next morning, we get up for van call, I go to pull the van around and one of the cast members open the back of van to find that all of our suitcases are gone.

They took nearly everything.

Not 100% everything. For some reason they left one of the cast member’s pet rocks, a creepy hand puppet, and a bunch of Girl Scout cookies.

So, when you get robbed on tour, what happens?

Well, first of all, one of you, in this case it was me, will spend hours filling out police paperwork. Which is hilarious because the police, especially in Fresno, don’t really give a damn, and you are never seeing those suitcases again.

Then, this one is important here, your producing company will remind you they have zero liability for the fact that you got robbed.

This particular tour was actually co-produced by two different companies.

While one was passionately reminding us they had no financial liability for what had occurred, the other went to like Five Below and filled up a box of crap and mailed it to us.

See my pal’s awesome weird monster hat picture.

Yes, the hat is awesome. Yes, we were headed into cold weather states, but when you have no toothbrush or underwear or clothing, you don’t want $50 in weird crap from Five Below – you want $50.

Just a kind note to producing companies.

To be fair, we did have fun shooting each other with those weird rubber slime slingshot creatures they sent.

A sister tour produced by the same company actually understood way better, took up a collection for us, and sent a $500 Walmart gift card that we divided up between all of us (thanks again, ImaginOcean!).

Then, our other producing company that insisted they had no financial obligation to us, gave us each a $500 stipend to replace things.

And sent us carry on sized suitcases, which was pretty funny for a 6 month tour.

But, let me say, they were doing nothing wrong insisting they had no financial responsibility to us because it was in our contracts.

Who reads those things anyway?

But for real.

The real winner of the thievery was the one cast member who had renters insurance. She was able to take a copy of the police report, a list of what was in her suitcase, and make a claim for everything she’d lost.

She was the only one in the whole group who was prepared.

Your renters or homeowner’s insurance will usually cover your belongings if something happens to them while you’re traveling.

There are some great, cheap renters insurance companies. A super easy one to use is Lemonade, which starts at a whopping $5 a month for some plans.

Personally, I don’t tour with many expensive items and my electronics come in the hotel and venue with me everyday, but replacing things at the last minute on the road is expensive no matter how you slice it – even just your large suitcase is probably around $100. I did have a Black House White Market dress that I loved with me for our Opening Night party that I was never able to replace too.

Some of my cast members probably had $500 in cosmetics alone in their suitcases. Everyone is different.

One thing to do when you head out on tour with your new renter or homeowners insurance is just to snap a picture of what’s in your suitcase, especially if you do have expensive clothing or cosmetics.

And if you really pack a lot of things that are expensive, make a full list of what you have with you. It should only take you a few minutes and if some California assholes steal all your stuff, you’ll be glad you did it.

For a few other tips, you can check out the post I wrote about it the thieving here the week it happened.

Have you ever been robbed out on tour?