Planning Autumn Live Shows: Run Sheets and Rehearsals That Hold Up
As the dark evenings arrive and the live calendar fills, Isla Campbell explains how to build run sheets, rehearsal slots and backup plans so a show keeps to time.
IC
Isla Campbell
6 min read
Why autumn needs its own plan
Mid autumn is when many of our clients start to feel the squeeze. Conferences, awards evenings, regional news specials and indoor concerts all land in the same few months, and the daylight that made outdoor setups forgiving has gone. Crews work in the dark at both ends of the day, venues get booked back to back, and a loading bay that was empty in summer now has three vans waiting for it.
A workflow plan is the thing that absorbs that pressure. It does not make a show more elaborate. It simply writes down who does what, in which order, and what happens when something slips. I have found that the shows which run to time are rarely the ones with the most equipment. They are the ones where every person on the team could say, a day before, exactly what they were doing at any minute of the broadcast.
This article covers the first half of how we approach Live Production Workflow Planning: the paperwork and the rehearsal time. Backup thinking sits alongside it, and I will touch on it where it affects the schedule.
Building a run sheet people will actually read
A run sheet fails when it tries to be everything. We keep ours to one page per segment where we can, with a running time, the cue that starts the item, who is on camera, which sources are live, and what comes next. Anything more detailed, such as lighting states or audio levels, lives in separate department notes that link back to the same item numbers.
Write times in two columns: the planned clock time and the running duration. When an interview overruns by ninety seconds, the director can see at a glance which later item can give that time back. Without that, the gallery ends up arguing about arithmetic while the programme is on air.
Agree the sheet with the presenter and the venue contact, not only the production team. A presenter who has seen the order of items will hold a handover cleanly, and a venue manager who knows when the doors open and the house lights change can stop surprising you with it.
Planned clock time and running duration, side by side
The cue that starts each item, in plain words
Sources live on air for every segment
A named person responsible for each handover
Rehearsal time is cheaper than recovery time
Clients sometimes ask whether a full rehearsal is necessary for a short programme. My answer is usually that a short programme has less room to hide a mistake. Even a thirty-minute bulletin benefits from one complete run, started on time and stopped only for faults that would otherwise reach air.
We split rehearsal into two kinds. The technical run checks that cameras, graphics, audio and talkback all work as the run sheet says they will. The dress run is for the presenters and guests, with the real running order and as close to real timing as the room allows. Mixing the two tends to waste both, because people who are waiting for a fix lose their rhythm.
In autumn, build the rehearsal around the light. If the venue has windows, the daylight that suits camera exposure at two in the afternoon will be gone by the evening show, so test the set at the hour you will actually be broadcasting.
Schedule the days around load-in, not around the show
The most common planning error I see is a schedule that starts at the broadcast time and counts backwards with too little margin. Load-in, cabling, camera positioning and lighting focus are slow, physical jobs, and they depend on other people leaving the room. Put the venue's constraints on the schedule first: when the space is free, when power is available, and when the building closes.
Short autumn days also affect crew welfare. A team that began rigging at seven in the morning and is still tidying cable at ten at night makes more mistakes than a rested one. We plan a clear break between rig completion and rehearsal, and we do not stack the dress run straight onto the end of a long build.
Where a venue allows a day-before access, take it. Even a half day of rigging in advance turns the morning of the show from construction into checking, which is a much calmer thing to run.
Confirm venue access times in writing
Allow a break between rigging and rehearsal
Keep a margin for late deliveries and power checks
Backup plans that fit on the same page
A backup plan is not a second show. It is a short list of the points most likely to fail, with one agreed response for each. Typical entries are a camera that will not lock, a radio microphone that drops out, a guest who arrives late, and a graphics machine that freezes. Each gets a named person and a first action, written in a sentence.
We keep these notes at the director's position and in the department folders, using the same item numbers as the run sheet. In a live gallery there is no time to search for a document, so the shorter and more visible it is, the more likely it will be used.
Spare equipment matters too, but only the spares you can reach in under a minute. A spare microphone in the van does not help a presenter at the start of a bulletin. A spare on the desk, already on a channel, does.
A short checklist for the coming weeks
If you have a live broadcast between now and the end of the year, a few small steps will improve it more than any extra equipment. Start by deciding who owns the run sheet and who is allowed to change it, because several people editing one running order is the quickest way to lose track of timing.
Then fix your rehearsal slots in the diary now, before the venue and crew calendars fill. Ask the venue about access, power, and any events sharing the building on the day. Finally, write the backup notes while you are calm, not while the red light is on.
None of this is glamorous, but it is where a calm gallery comes from. A show that runs to time in November is usually one whose paperwork was finished in October.
Name one owner for the run sheet
Book technical and dress runs early
Write backup notes before the day
Good live production in the darker months comes down to ordinary preparation done early: a readable run sheet, rehearsals that test the right things, a schedule built around the venue, and short backup notes at hand. None of it needs a larger budget. It needs a few honest conversations before the day, so that when the programme starts, everyone already knows their next cue.
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