How to write a run of show
A run of show (also called a show flow or cue sheet) is the minute-by-minute plan that everyone running your event follows. Done well, it keeps the day on time and tells each person exactly when they are on, without anyone needing to ask. Skip it, or leave it as a loose agenda in someone's head, and the day drifts: a speaker runs long, nobody notices until catering is standing outside a locked door, and the MC is improvising a close nobody planned for. This guide is for whoever ends up holding the clock on event day, whether that is a dedicated stage manager, a production lead, or the one person on a small team who volunteered first. Here is how to build a run of show that survives contact with a real, imperfect day.
The Event70 Team · 4 min read
- 1
Anchor to your fixed times first
Write down the times you genuinely cannot move: doors opening, the keynote slot you promised a speaker who is flying in for it, the catering window the venue has locked in, the hard stop when the room reverts to another booking. Everything else on the day flexes around those anchors. A common mistake is treating every time on the agenda as fixed, which leaves no slack to absorb the ten minutes that always disappear somewhere before lunch.
- 2
Break the event into cues
List every distinct moment as its own line: doors and check-in, welcome, each talk, breaks, meals, the close. A cue is anything that changes who is on stage or what the room is doing, down to a video playing or a band walking on. If you find yourself writing one line that covers ninety minutes, split it. A cue you cannot time in your head is a cue nobody can run.
- 3
Give every cue a duration, not just a start
Durations are what let times recalculate when something runs long. Assign minutes to each cue and let the start times fall out of the running total, rather than typing a fixed clock time into every line by hand. That way, when the opening keynote runs eight minutes over, everything downstream shifts automatically instead of you manually rewriting a schedule mid-event while people are asking you questions.
- 4
Assign one owner per line
Every cue needs a single named person who makes it happen: the MC, the AV lead, catering, the stage manager. Not a department, a name. If no one owns a cue, it will not happen on time, because everyone assumes someone else has it. A run of show with an owner column filled in is the difference between a plan and a wish list.
- 5
Add cue types and the detail the crew needs
Tag each line by type (speaker, break, meal, segment) and note mic counts, lighting state, walk-on music, video cues and who is standing backstage ready to go, so the crew is never guessing in the moment. This detail is what turns a run of show from a schedule into an actual production document that AV and stage management can run from without a briefing every time.
- 6
Build in buffer and a plan to catch up
Real events run long, almost every time. Add five to ten minutes of slack before any fixed time like a scheduled meal or a speaker with a flight to catch, and decide in advance which cues you can shorten or cut if you fall behind: a shorter Q&A, a trimmed intro, a break cut from twenty minutes to twelve. Deciding under pressure on the day is much harder than deciding now.
- 7
Rehearse the handoffs, not the content
You do not need to run the whole show start to finish, that wastes a rehearsal slot you do not have. Walk the seams instead: the moment AV hands to the MC, the cut from video back to stage, the transition out of a panel and into a break. Those handoffs are where time leaks and confidence drops, so rehearse them specifically with the people who own each side of the handoff.
- 8
Put it live on one screen for the day
On the day, the run of show should be live in the room on a shared screen or a tool everyone can see on their phone, showing the current cue and what is next, so no one is shouting times across the floor or radioing the stage manager to ask what's coming up. A run of show that only exists as a PDF someone printed that morning is already out of date by cue three.
See it in Event70
RSVPs
- JAJordan Avery+2confirmed
- SPSam Patel+1confirmed
- RCRobin Cho+1pending
- DNDevi Nair0declined
Event70 turns this into a working plan: a live run of show, an assignable checklist, RSVPs, a budget and the day-of, all on one event.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a run of show and an agenda?
An agenda is what attendees see: session titles and rough times, meant to be read once. A run of show is an internal production document built for the people running the event, with minute-by-minute cues, named owners, AV notes and buffer time built in. An agenda tells guests what's happening. A run of show tells your team exactly what to do and when, cue by cue.
Who should own the run of show on event day?
One person, usually a stage manager or producer, should hold the master copy and be the single source of truth for the current cue and the time. Everyone else, AV, catering, the MC, works from their own copy but defers to that person's calls on timing. Splitting ownership across two people is a common way for a run of show to fall out of sync mid-event.
How detailed should a run of show actually be?
Detailed enough that someone unfamiliar with the event could pick it up and run a cue correctly: who is on, what they need, how long they have, and what happens next. That usually means a line per cue with duration, owner, and any AV or staging notes. Too little detail and people guess. Too much and no one reads it under pressure, so keep notes short and specific.
What happens if the event falls badly behind schedule?
This is why buffer and a pre-agreed cut list matter. Work from your list of cues you can shorten or drop, communicate the change to affected owners immediately rather than waiting, and protect your hardest fixed points, like a venue curfew or a speaker's flight, first. A run of show that recalculates from durations makes this fast; one built on fixed clock times makes it much harder.
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