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
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.
| 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. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Use of this tool is subject to our Terms.
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 to clipboard 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. Download CSV writes the running order as a spreadsheet, with the start times already cascaded and the lengths in minutes so you can sum a session block or a whole stream. It opens straight into Excel or Google Sheets, which matters on a conference more than most formats, because the run of show usually has to end up alongside the AV cue sheet, the catering order and the room plan in whatever the production team already works in. The other button, Save to a file, writes a .json that reopens here; the CSV is a one-way trip.
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.
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.