Conference run of show template
Crew access through to vacate, already timed, with doors pinned to the time on the invitation. Change a session length and the rest of the day re-flows.
Your conference run of show
| Start | Length | Item | Who |
|---|
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.
The conference run of show in full
Starting at 08:00 it finishes at 17:50, a span of 9h 50. Change one length and every row below it moves.
| Start | Length | Item | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00 | 1h | Crew access, room set | Production |
| 09:00 | 45 min | AV and sound check | AV |
| 09:45 | 15 min | Registration desk opens | Front of house |
| 10:00 pinned | 15 min | Welcome and housekeeping | MC |
| 10:15 | 45 min | Opening keynote | AV |
| 11:00 | 30 min | Morning break | Catering |
| 11:30 | 1h | Breakout session one | AV |
| 12:30 | 1h | Lunch | Catering |
| 13:30 | 1h | Breakout session two | AV |
| 14:30 | 20 min | Afternoon break | Catering |
| 14:50 | 45 min | Panel discussion | MC |
| 15:35 | 15 min | Closing remarks | MC |
| 15:50 | 1h | Networking drinks | Bar |
| 16:50 | 1h | Vacate | Production |
Why "Welcome and housekeeping" is pinned. Doors and the welcome are pinned to 10am because that is what is on the invitation. Everything above the pin is crew time, and it moves freely as long as it lands before ten.
The agenda is not the plan
Most conferences are run off the delegate agenda with a few notes scribbled next to it, and that works right up until the moment two things need to happen at once. The agenda says "10:15 Morning break". It does not say who is putting the coffee out, when the breakout room gets reset, or that the panel needs three lapel mics fitted while the break is happening.
A run of show says all of that, and it says who owns each line. That is the whole difference, and it is why the template below starts two hours before any delegate arrives and ends after the room is empty.
The rows conference plans usually forget
- The room turn. Plenary to cabaret is not a coffee break, it is twenty minutes of work. Put it on the sheet with a name against it or it will happen during the session before.
- Speaker tech checks. Every presenter who has not been in the room needs five minutes with the clicker and the confidence monitor, and the only time that fits is before doors or during a break.
- Registration peak, not registration open. Sixty percent of your delegates arrive in the twenty minutes before the first session. Staffing for the hour is not the same as staffing for the peak.
- Catering timing against session ends. If lunch is set for one and the morning session runs to ten past, the food has been sitting for ten minutes. The kitchen needs to know the real number, not the printed one.
- Vacate. The venue has a time and it is contractual. Pack down is work, it takes as long as the load in, and it belongs on the sheet.
Conferences change on the morning
More than any other format, a conference is edited on the day. A speaker misses a flight, a session overruns by twenty minutes and everything behind it compresses, or a breakout is merged because half the delegates went to the other one. Each of those changes has to reach AV, catering, the desk and the MC within about a minute to be useful.
A printed run of show cannot do that, and a group chat is not a plan. That is what 1pm is for: one live run of show, shared by link, updating on every phone as you edit it, filtered so each supplier sees only the rows that involve them. When the sheet above is right, Copy for 1pm moves it across in one paste.
Also worth reading: why you need a live digital run of show, and the other starting points on the run of show builder.
Common questions
Everything from crew access to vacate, not just the sessions on the agenda. The published agenda is what delegates see. The run of show is what the team works from, so it also carries the sound check, the registration desk opening, the room turns between sessions, the catering drops and the pack down. Each row needs an owner, because a conference has more people running in parallel than almost any other event format.
The agenda is the delegate-facing programme: session titles, speakers and times. The run of show is the operational document behind it, covering everything the agenda leaves out and naming who is responsible for each item. One is marketing, the other is the plan. Delegates should never see the run of show, and your AV crew should never be working from the agenda.
Fifteen minutes minimum for a simple changeover, and thirty if the room has to be reset, a panel needs miking or delegates are moving between floors. The most commonly missed item is the room turn itself: a plenary room going to cabaret for a workshop is not a break, it is twenty minutes of work by four people, and it belongs on the sheet as its own row.
Pin it. In this template the welcome is pinned to ten in the morning because that is what is on the invitation, and everything above it, the crew access, the sound check and the registration desk, cascades up to meet it. The tool then tells you how much slack sits in front of the pin, which is the number that answers "can the crew really be ready in time".
Everyone working it, which is exactly where a printed one falls down. AV, catering, the registration desk, the MC and the venue duty manager all need the current version, and a conference schedule changes on the morning more often than not. A speaker cancels, a session overruns, lunch moves. Paper cannot keep up with that.
Yes. The same shape covers product launches, AGMs, awards nights, sales kick-offs and training days: crew access, doors, a programme, catering and a pack down. Load the template, cut what you do not need, and rename the rest.
A conference schedule that changes on the morning
1pm shares one run of show with AV, catering, the registration desk and the venue in real time. Each of them sees only their own items, on their phone, with no login. Move this one across in about a minute.