Common Mistakes in Live Event Workflow Planning and How to Avoid Them

The most frequent mistake is a kit list drawn up before anyone has described where each signal begins and where it must end. Producers book cameras, a vision mixer and a router, then discover that the venue feed, the replay machine and the comfort monitors were never given a route. By then the budget is committed and the cabling is a compromise.

We ask for a plain diagram first: every source, every destination, and the format in between. A single page is enough. It shows at once where a converter is needed, where a signal is split twice, and where one failed cable would silence two outputs. Only then does the equipment list make sense, because each item has a reason to be there.

Keep the diagram alive after planning. When a late request adds a screen or a remote contributor, the change goes on the page before it goes in the truck.

• Draw sources and destinations before choosing hardware
• Note the format and frame rate at every stage
• Mark any point where one failure affects two outputs

A crew list with job titles is not the same as a crew plan. On many productions two people each assume the other is watching the audio feed from the speaker's lectern, or nobody owns the call to cut to a pre-recorded item. The fault shows up live, in front of the audience, and it is rarely a technical one.

Write each role as a set of duties tied to a moment in the running order. Who confirms that the graphics operator has the right lower thirds loaded? Who speaks to the venue contact when the stage manager is unreachable? Who has authority to stop a rehearsal?

Hannah Whitlock, who plans many of our schedules, finds that a half-page of named duties removes most of the quiet confusion. It also helps freelancers arriving on the morning, who have no history with the team and need to see their edges clearly.

• Tie each duty to a point in the running order
• Name one owner for every decision, not a pair
• Give arriving freelancers the same sheet as staff

A rehearsal squeezed into the last hour before doors checks little beyond whether the pictures appear. The mistakes that hurt are subtler: a talkback channel that drops when two people speak, a camera whose colour drifts under the stage lights, a playback that starts a second late and drags the whole sequence.

Plan the rehearsal as a series of purposes, each with its own time. One pass for signal and levels, one for cues and cuts, one run of the opening and closing without stopping. Leave a short gap afterwards for fixes, because every rehearsal finds something.

If the schedule cannot hold three passes, shorten the show or reduce the number of sources rather than cutting the practice. A simpler programme that has been run twice is safer than an ambitious one seen once.

• Separate technical checks from cue rehearsals
• Always run the opening and closing end to end
• Reserve time after the run for corrections

Plans usually describe the show working. Few describe the show half working. A power distribution unit trips, a fibre link degrades, a presenter's radio microphone dies at the wrong second. If nobody has decided in advance what the crew does, the first thirty seconds are spent deciding.

For each critical path, write one line: what fails, what we switch to, who makes the call. A spare camera on a standby input, a second feed to the main screen, a wired microphone taped under the lectern. None of it is costly, but each item needs a place in the diagram and a person who knows it is there.

Then test one of them in rehearsal. A fallback that has never been used is only a hope, and crews can tell the difference when the pressure arrives.

• Write a switch-over line for each critical path
• Keep spare sources on a labelled standby input
• Test at least one fallback during rehearsal

Venues bring their own constraints, and they are often discovered late. A cable run that looked short on the plan crosses a fire door. A rigging point cannot take the weight of the lighting bar. The only available power is shared with the kitchen. Each of these delays the load-in and shortens the time for rehearsal.

Visit before finalising anything, or at least speak to the venue's technical contact with a written list of questions: power, access, load-in times, noise limits, network provision, and where the crew can work without being in the audience's sightline.

Record the answers on the same sheet as the signal diagram. When the plan and the building agree on paper, the day of the event tends to be uneventful, which is exactly the result a live production should aim for.

• Ask about power, access and rigging weight limits
• Confirm load-in and get-out times in writing
• Note where the crew may work unseen