A run-of-show template that re-times itself when the programme moves.

Somewhere on your drive there is a folder like this:

Event_Rundown_MASTER.xlsx · Event_Rundown_MASTER_v2.xlsx · Rundown_FINAL.xlsx · Rundown_FINAL_final_USE_THIS.xlsx

Five files, one event, and no certainty which one the technical team is planning from. I ran running orders exactly like this for 25 years — world championships, medal ceremonies, corporate conferences. The folder always looked the same. The problem was never the discipline. It was the tool.

Why the Excel run of show breaks every time you edit it

A run of show is a timing document. Change one thing and every time below it has to agree. That is precisely what a spreadsheet does badly.

• Someone types over the formula in C14 during an edit. Every start time below it is now wrong, and the sheet says nothing until rehearsal.
• The programme moves — a session shifts, a speaker is added — and you re-time forty rows by hand. Then it moves again next week.
• Seven crew roles, so the sheet grows to 74 columns, and nobody can find their own cues.
• You email the running order to the AV team. Two edits later, their printout is fiction and you are both sure yours is the real one.

Getting the important sessions timed right — the ceremony, the keynote block, the gala — should be the interesting part of the work. Instead it costs days, because the tool punishes every edit.

What a run-of-show template should actually do

The goal in planning is simple: get the timing right, keep it easy to change, and hand the crew one agreed script. A template that earns its place does four things a spreadsheet can't.

• It times the script without formulas. Anchor a block, give each cue a duration, and every start and end time builds itself. There is nothing to type over, so you can shape the timing freely for weeks.
• It re-times the whole show in seconds. Move a keynote 40 minutes, cut a segment, add a break — drag one row and the entire script re-times. No more re-typing forty rows each time the programme changes.
• It gives each role its own view. Filter to lighting, or catering, or the stage — and print just that, instead of a 74-column monster.
• It is one shared script. Send a view-only link. The technical team, AV partner and hosts all plan from the current version. No FINAL_final files.

Plan first, run second

The core value of a good rundown tool is the planning: getting the run of show timed and agreed before anyone is on stage. A live show mode — full-screen clock, current cue, a tap to shift when a speaker runs over — is useful, and Rundown Master includes one. But the work that makes the evening hold is done in planning, in the weeks before, on a script that everyone already shares. That is what the tool is built for.

Planning the client-facing agenda rather than the production script? That's a different job — see Agenda Master, the approvable agenda you send to a CEO.