Pre-show checklist

Most show problems trace back to something that could have been caught in advance. This checklist gives you a phase-by-phase walkthrough — from the week before to the final five minutes — so you're not scrambling when the room fills up.

A week before

Set up your show structure.

• Create or duplicate the show template. If you're repeating the same format week to week, duplicate last week's show rather than rebuilding from scratch.
• Confirm the room and team assignments are correct. A show built for the wrong room means cue outputs go to the wrong screens.
• Check that every team that needs an output screen has one assigned — a team with no output just goes dark during the show.

Check your stage roster.

• Update the vocalist and musician list for this event. Solos assigned to someone not on the roster won't display correctly on the stage output.
• If your lineup changes late, you can update solos on individual cues — you don't need to redo the whole show.

The day before

Review your cue list.

• Walk through every cue from top to bottom. Check titles, types, and order. What looks obvious when you build it can be confusing when someone else is reading it live.
• If you're using timers, verify the durations make sense for each cue. A timer set to 30 seconds for a 4-minute segment will advance the show early.
• Check that notes on cues are complete. These are what your crew reads during the show — vague notes cause hesitation.

Prepare your Q&A flow (if applicable).

• Enable Q&A on the show if you're running a question segment.
• If you have a moderator, confirm they know the URL for the moderator panel and that they can access it from their device.
• If you're using a public display screen, test it with a real question to confirm the layout and font size work for the room.

An hour before

Start your event and confirm outputs are live.

• Start the event from the director's seat. A show doesn't sync to outputs until an event is running.
• Open each output screen and confirm it's receiving data. A blank or stale output screen usually means the socket isn't connected — refresh the output tab to reconnect.
• Confirm the public Q&A display (if you're using one) is showing the correct state. It should show idle state when no show is active, not a blank browser window.

Brief your team.

• If anyone is running an output screen for the first time, show them what it looks like before the room fills up. The output screen is read-only — there's nothing they can break — but familiarity matters when things move fast.
• Let your stage monitor operator know which cue is first and what the naming convention means. "WOR1, WOR2, WOR3" is not obvious to someone who didn't build the cue list.

Five minutes before

Do a final cue check.

• Confirm the active cue is the one you want displayed at showtime. The output screens show whatever the director seat has active.
• If you're starting with a title slide or a pre-show loop, make sure that cue is selected — not the first cue of the actual show.

Confirm Q&A readiness.

• If questions will open during a specific segment, confirm Q&A is set to closed for now. Audiences sometimes start submitting the moment they see the QR code, and an unmoderated queue filling up before the segment starts is messy to manage.
• Your moderator should have the moderation panel open and ready.

Hand off.

• If you're handing the director's seat to someone else during the show, walk them through the interface before you step away. Confirm they can advance cues, send messages, and toggle Q&A — even if you don't expect them to need to.