Run of show template
Enter the running order and the times work themselves out. Print it, save as PDF/CSV, or share with anyone with one link. Start with a template or build from scratch.
Build your run of show
Share whole editable version with anyone
One link carries the whole run of show, and whoever opens it gets their own copy. The florist adds their install window, the caterer their service times, and you retype none of it.
- No sign-up, no app to download.
- A QR code on the printed sheet, so paper hands itself on.
- The data is contained in the link. Nothing is uploaded or stored.
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Built free at 1pm.app/tools/run-of-show Take it further
Print it, save it, or move it into 1pm to share it live with your crew and suppliers.
Copied. Three steps to have it live:
- Start a free 1pm trial, no card needed.
- Create your event and edit the event portal.
- Choose Paste in and paste. Every row lands with its time and length.
Add a row with a name on it first, then there will be something to copy.
Saved in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Use of this tool is subject to our Terms.
Run of show templates by event type
Seven starting points, each a full running order with realistic lengths rather than a set of empty rows. Load one, then cut what you do not need. That is almost always faster than writing a sheet from nothing, because the rows people forget are the ones nobody thinks to add: the sound check, the pack down, the twenty minutes it takes to seat a room.
Wedding day timeline
Getting ready through to farewell, with the ceremony pinned and the photography blocks where they actually belong.
Wedding reception timeline
The evening only, from arrival drinks through to guests departing, with the speeches split across the courses instead of stacked after the mains.
Conference or corporate
Crew access, registration, keynote, breakouts and networking, with doors pinned to the time on the invitation.
Awards night
Presenter rehearsal through to carriages, with the categories split into blocks and a course between them so the kitchen can serve.
Charity gala
Room set through to carriages, with the auction, the appeal and the courses interleaved the way they run on the night.
Webinar or virtual event
The two hours of tech checks before it and the follow-up after it, which is where a virtual event is actually won or lost.
General event run sheet
A load in, a program and a pack down. The neutral starting point when none of the others quite fit.
Why the times move on their own
Every run of show gets rewritten. The band wants fifteen more minutes, the client moves the ceremony back half an hour. In a spreadsheet, each of those edits means retyping every time below the change.
So this tool stores how long each thing takes, not what time it starts, and works the clock out from the top. Move the start and the whole day moves. Give the speeches ten more minutes and everything after them shifts by ten.
Times are typed, not picked, and you can write them the way you say them: 9am, 9.30, 930, 947pm, or 1430. A bare number takes the reading nearer the time the row already had, so nudging a mid-afternoon item to "9" gives you nine in the evening. Type a time that belongs earlier in the day and the row moves there rather than stretching the one above it.
Pin the things that will not move
Some times are not yours. The ceremony is at three whether or not hair and makeup ran long, and doors are at seven because that is what is printed on the invitations. Pin a row to a fixed time and it becomes the anchor for everything under it.
The useful part is the gap in front of the pin. Load in finishes at 4:20 and doors are pinned at 5:00: forty minutes spare. Finish at 5:15 and it says fifteen minutes over, in red. That number tells you whether the plan is real, and almost nobody works it out by hand until the morning of the event.
Writing a run of show that survives the day
The format matters less than what goes in it. Six things separate the sheets that hold up from the ones abandoned by the second course.
- Start at access, not arrival. The riskiest hours are the ones before any guest sees the room. A sheet that starts at doors leaves them unplanned.
- Put a name on every row. "Cake cutting" is a hope. "Cake cutting, Kitchen" is a plan.
- Write lengths you believe. Twenty minutes of speeches means forty. Seating two hundred takes fifteen, not five. Optimism does not save time, it moves the overrun somewhere worse.
- Leave gaps on purpose. Slack in front of a pin is the only reason a small delay stays small.
- Say what happens, not what is true. "Bar open" is a state. "Bar opens, two staff on" is an instruction.
- Keep one copy. Three versions in three inboxes is how a photographer ends up in the wrong room at the right time.
What this tool does not do
It does not keep everyone on the same version. The link you send carries the sheet inside it, so whoever opens it gets their own copy: your later edits never reach them, and theirs never reach you. Your own sheet is saved in this browser only, so a different device starts empty. Nothing is held on a server, which is why the tool needs nothing from you and why it cannot do either of those things.
That is fine while you are planning, and a problem on the day, when the crew are on paper, the client is asking what time the cake is, and only the last person to edit knows the current version. That is what 1pm does: one live run of show your crew, suppliers and client watch update in real time, each seeing only the rows that involve them, on their phone, with no login. Copy to clipboard moves this sheet across in one paste.
More on the thinking behind that: why a run of show was never a spreadsheet job, why you need a live digital run of show, and the run of show help article for how the paid version works.
Common questions
A run of show, or ROS, is the minute by minute plan for an event: what happens, when it starts, how long it takes and who is responsible. It covers the whole day rather than just the guest-facing part, so it starts at supplier access and ends when the room is vacated. Everyone working the event runs off the same one, which is the entire point of writing it down.
It generates the times, not the content. Load one of the templates and you have a full running order in a few seconds, then you change the lengths and every time below it re-flows on its own. What it will not do is invent your event for you, because a generated sheet that has never seen your venue, your suppliers or your access times is a sheet you have to check line by line anyway. Starting from a real running order and cutting what you do not need is faster, and you end up trusting the result.
It is free and there is no account. There is no email wall, no card and no trial clock. Your run of show is saved in your own browser, and even the share link carries it inside the link rather than sending it to us, so there is nothing for us to see even if we wanted to.
In this browser, on this device, in local storage. Come back on the same browser and it is still here. It will not follow you to your phone unless you send yourself the share link, and clearing your browsing data will remove it. If it matters, use the Save to a file button and keep the file somewhere you trust.
Yes. Download CSV gives you the running order as a spreadsheet, with the start times already worked out, the lengths in minutes so you can sum them, and columns for the item, the owner and the notes. It opens directly in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or anything else that reads a CSV. The separate Save to a file button writes a .json instead, which is the one to use if you want to reopen the sheet in this builder later, because a CSV comes out of here but does not come back in.
It fixes that row to a clock time instead of letting it follow the row above. Use it for the moments that are not yours to move: a ceremony at three, doors at seven, a keynote that is on the invitation. Everything below a pin re-flows from the pin, and if the rows above run past it the tool tells you by how much rather than quietly sliding it.
Yes. Share gives you a link with the whole run of show packed inside it, and a QR code on the printed sheet, so there is still nothing stored on our servers and nothing for the other person to sign up to. What it gives them is their own copy to edit, which makes it a snapshot: your later changes do not reach them, and theirs do not reach you. If you want your crew and suppliers watching one live version that updates as the day moves, each seeing only the rows that involve them, that is what 1pm does, and you can move this run of show straight into it.
Yes. Run of show is the usual term in the United States, run sheet is the usual term in Australia and the UK, and the document is the same thing. Some teams also call it a production schedule or a timeline. Whatever it is called, it is a list of items with times, lengths and owners.
Yes. Caterers, planners, photographers, AV crews and venues use it for paid work, and there is nothing to buy or attribute. It is a free tool, not a trial.
One event, or every event
This builder does one sheet for one day. If you are planning a one-off, that is genuinely all you need and you should use it. If you run events for a living, the run of show is the last hour of a job that started with a lead weeks earlier, and the sheet on its own cannot hold the rest of it.
This free builder
One-off eventsA good document, and only a document. Nothing to sign up for, nothing stored.
- One event at a time, and no record of the last one.
- Saved in this browser only, so a new device starts empty.
- The link hands over a copy, so your later edits never reach it.
- Print, PDF or CSV, and then the document is on its own.
1pm
Event pros and venuesThe system of record for the whole operation, with the live run of show at the centre of it.
- Leads. A lead form on your own site, every reply in one inbox, nothing lost in a personal mailbox.
- Quotes and confirmations. Send a priced quote, the client accepts and signs it online, and the event is created from it.
- Live run of show. The sheet you just built, shared for real: crew, suppliers and the client watch it update, each seeing only their own rows.
- BEOs for every department. Service style, setup, pax, dietaries, access and vacate, on one brief the kitchen, AV and duty manager can all work from.
- Spaces and capacity. Rooms with their own addresses, access notes and limits, and a hard block on double-booking one twice.
- Menus and food costing. Priced menus, dietary tracking, and recipe and portion costing so you know the margin before you quote it.
- Invoices and payments. Deposits, balances, card payment online, and a one-way sync into Xero when the money lands.
- Contacts, crew, tasks and reporting. Every event you have ever run, searchable, with the people and the numbers attached to it.
If you are an event pro
Planners, caterers, photographers, AV and celebrants run every client job in 1pm end to end: the lead, the quote, the signed confirmation, the run of show and the final invoice, on one record per job instead of five tools and a spreadsheet.
If you are a venue
Hotels, restaurants and event spaces get the function diary, the BEO each department works from, covers and pax, access and vacate, and a kitchen reading the same event the sales team sold, without printing a thing.
Move this run of show into 1pm
Copy to clipboard above takes the whole sheet across in one paste, times, lengths and owners intact. 30 days free, no card, and nothing to install for the people you share it with.