Build the running order
The running order is the spine of the whole event. Build it once, roughly, and expect to change it live — that is what it is for.
Building it
- Add items in the order they happen
Each item is one thing: a round, a moment, a set, a session, a song. If two things happen back to back and you might need to move one without the other, they are two items.
- Give each one a length
Your event type pre-fills a sensible default — five minutes for a class round, forty-five for a concert set. Change the ones that are wrong and leave the rest.
- Put the gaps in
Changeovers, breaks and intermissions are items too. This is the step people skip, and it is the reason nights end forty minutes late — the gaps were always there, they just were not on the plan.
- Attach who is on
Assign the performer, team, speaker or class to the item. That is what makes the room screen able to say who is up next without anybody typing it during the event.
- Check the finish time
The total is shown as you build. If it says you finish at 11:40pm and the room closes at 11:00pm, you have found a problem two days early instead of on the night.
Changing it during the event
| What happened | What you do |
|---|---|
| Something is running long | Add time to the clock. Everything after it shifts and the new finish time appears. |
| Something has to move | Drag it. The order updates everywhere; nothing needs re-announcing. |
| Something is cancelled | Skip it. It stays on the record as skipped rather than vanishing, so the after-the-fact story still makes sense. |
| Something new appeared | Add it in place. There is no separate "live" mode — you edit the same running order you built. |
Templates
If your room runs the same shape every week — a Tuesday class, a Sunday service, a standard reception — build it once and reuse it. Each week you are adjusting names, not rebuilding a structure.
One habit worth having
Put a deliberate slack item near the middle: five minutes called “buffer”. When the day runs on time you skip it and finish early, which nobody has ever complained about. When it does not, you have already paid for the overrun.
Next: running the clock on the day.