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Solutions · Production manager

Putting it up crew, gear, vendors, the dock, and the count at the end.

The build, the people on it, and what is arriving to be built with, read off one event record — so the thing that is late is visible before it is late on the floor.

Who this is

You are the one who has to make it stand up. The advance is somebody else's, the deal is somebody else's, and the call is somebody else's — yours is the fortnight where a drawing turns into a room, with the crew, the gear and four vendors who each think they are first on the dock.

  • Your unit is the build, and the build is people plus what arrives
  • You would rather know a case is still on the deck now than at soundcheck
  • The number you actually care about is how many of them came home
What you open first

Build Schedule

/shows/…/build

The build as items with dates, owners and departments, and a status on each — done, in progress, blocked. You open it first because it is the only screen that answers what has to happen today in an order somebody can actually work.

More on Show Ops
Build Schedule: twelve build items with dates, owners and departments, three done, two in progress and one blocked
Build Ops · Build Schedule
How you use the site

Build Schedule is the spine: what is happening, who owns it, what is blocked. The event Gear List is what you are building with — every line carrying its case and its truck, which is how you answer whether a thing is here without walking the dock. CrewOps By Event is the positions board for this show rather than the whole company, so filling a hole is one screen. The dock board is where the trucks and the windows live, and it is shared with logistics rather than copied from them. Department cards tell you which discipline has not filled its sheets in, and Tasks is where the open questions from the advance land on you.

The screens you live in

5 screens, and what each one is for.

01

The event gear list

/shows/…/gear

What is coming, in which case, on which truck, and how much of it has actually been pulled against what was asked for. This is the count — the one you read on the way in and again on the way out — and it is the event's own list, not the shop's.

02

Crew, by event

/shows/…/crewops

The positions board for this show: what is needed, what is filled, and what is still a hole with a date on it. Availability is computed from assignments that already exist, so a person who is on another show that week is flagged rather than double-booked and discovered.

More on Crew Ops
CrewOps By Event: positions for the event with filled and unfilled roles per day, and the crew assigned to each
CrewOps · By Event
03

The dock board

/shows/…/logistics

Trucks against doors and windows, with what has arrived and what is still flagged as needing a trip. You share this board with the logistics coordinator rather than keeping a second version of it — which is the entire point, because two dock plans is how a vendor ends up on the wrong side of a lift.

More on Fleet Ops
Event Logistics dock board: arriving trucks with their windows and doors, and the rows flagged as needing a trip
Build Ops · Logistics
04

The department sheets

/shows/…/departments

One card per discipline, each carrying its sheet count, gear items, crew checked in and open tasks. It is the fastest read of which department is actually ready and which one is telling you it is.

More on Show Ops
Show Ops Departments: Audio, Video, LX/Lighting, Scenic, Staging, Network, Power and Rigging cards, each with sheet counts, gear items, crew checked in and open tasks
Show Ops · Departments
05

Tasks

/shows/…/advance/tasks

The open questions that survived the advance and are now yours, grouped by area, with meters fed by the records rather than by ticking. It is the list that tells you what is still unresolved on the morning the trucks arrive.

More on Advance
Advance Tasks: progress meters for flights, hotels, creds, event details, venue advance and packages, above a checklist grouped by area
Advance Ops · Tasks
The full list

What this chair can reach

Every screen this seat opens, called what the product calls it, so you can find it once you are inside. What this chair does not get is the next section down.

  • Build Schedule/shows/…/build
  • Gear List — cases and trucks/shows/…/gear
  • CrewOps — By Event/shows/…/crewops
  • Logistics — the dock board/shows/…/logistics
  • Departments/shows/…/departments
  • Tasks/shows/…/advance/tasks
  • Schedules/shows/…/advance/schedules
What you never touch

The boundary, before you find it yourself

Half of these are somebody else's screen and half of them are things this software does not do at all. Both are worth knowing now rather than at 16:00 on a load-in day.

  • The pull sheet

    How gear came off a shelf is the shop tech's screen. You read the event's list — what is coming and whether it is here — not the pick that produced it.

  • Kits, pairing and RFID

    What is bagged with what, and which tag is on it, is the warehouse's discipline. It does not become yours because you are the one waiting for the case.

  • The racks and the warehouse floor

    Where a case sleeps between shows is the shop's answer. Your floor is the one with the show on it.

  • Calling the show

    Standby and GO are the stage manager's desk. You built the room they are calling in; you are not on that screen while they do it.

  • Invoices and A/R

    What the week costs is the producer's line and what is unpaid is the owner's. You are answering for whether it stands up.

  • Driver duty clocks

    Hours of service is the driver's screen and the coordinator's constraint. You need the truck at the door, not the log behind it.

A day on the job

The build, the load-in, and the count at the end.

  1. Fortnight outThe build as items with owners and dates — and the blocked one, visible.Build Ops · Build Schedule
  2. Fortnight outFill the holes on the positions board before they are holes on the floor.CrewOps · By Event
  3. Week outWindows and doors for four vendors who each think they are first.Build Ops · Logistics
  4. Load-inWhat is on the truck, which case it is in, and whether it is here yet.Build Ops · Gear List
  5. Load-inWhich department is ready, read off a card rather than shouted across a room.Show Ops · Departments
  6. OutThe count against what came in. That is the number you answer for.Build Ops · Gear List