ACCESSPUBLICFORThe person driving the event
Run the clock
The clock is the only thing you actually operate during an event. Six controls, and everything in the building follows them.
The controls
| Control | What it does | What the room sees |
|---|---|---|
| Start | Begins the current item and its countdown. | The item name and a counting-down clock. |
| Pause | Freezes the countdown where it is. Nothing is lost. | The clock stops moving. Deliberately obvious — a paused clock should look paused. |
| Resume | Picks up from exactly where it paused. | The clock moves again from the same number. |
| Add time | Extends the current item. | More time on the clock, and a later finish time for everything after it. |
| Take time | Shortens the current item to claw back an overrun. | Less time on the clock, and an earlier finish. |
| Next | Ends this item and starts the next one on the running order. | The new item and its own countdown, with the following one shown as up next. |
Counting down, and what happens at zero
The clock counts down, and it stops at zero rather than going negative. Reaching zero does not advance anything by itself — a person presses next. Nothing in NextSet ends someone's set for them.
Between items
Changeovers, breaks and intermissions run on the same clock as everything else. That is the point: a fifteen-minute changeover that has been running for twenty-two minutes is visible to the whole room, which is usually enough to end it.
If you have to jump
You can skip straight to any item on the running order. Everything you passed is marked skipped rather than deleted, so afterwards the record still says what actually happened.
Practical advice for the first few
- One person holds the director view. Two people pressing next is how an item gets skipped by accident.
- Keep a phone as a spare. The director view works on a phone; if your laptop dies you have not lost the event, only the big screen.
- Add time early, not late. Adding three minutes while there is still a minute on the clock reads as planning. Adding it at zero reads as a scramble.
- If you are unsure whether the room can see the clock, look at the room. The big screen is the truth for everybody except you.