Reading a festival running order: the rules a broadcast crew works by

On a festival site the running order is the nearest thing a broadcast crew has to a script. It lists who plays, in which slot, on which stage, and how long each act has. For a mobile production crew it also decides when cameras can be repositioned, when graphics are loaded and when the vision mixer can relax for a moment.

Read it the way an engineer does. A slot of forty-five minutes is rarely forty-five minutes of music. It contains an intro, gaps between songs, perhaps a late start. We plan around the printed times but we keep a margin, because a stage that runs ten minutes behind moves everything after it.

Daniel here: I wrote this note in the quieter part of the season, when most outdoor shows have finished and the kit is back on the racks. It is a good moment to explain a few terms that crews use without thinking, and that organisers sometimes meet for the first time on a call sheet.

A changeover is the time between one act leaving the stage and the next being ready. On the running order it looks like empty space. To the audience it is a pause. For a broadcast crew it is the busiest stretch of the day, because it is the only time cameras, cables and monitors can be adjusted without affecting the picture.

During a changeover the crew checks focus, repositions handheld cameras, resets graphics and confirms that the next act's name and caption are correct. Screens at the venue often show a holding loop or sponsor material, and someone has to cue that cleanly so the room does not go dark.

If a changeover is shortened to fifteen minutes, we say so early. It changes how many cameras we can move and how much we leave untouched. A realistic changeover is one of the most useful pieces of information an organiser can give us.

• Camera checks and focus
• Graphics and captions reset
• Holding loop on venue screens

The stage clock is the time everyone on a stage works to, usually shown on a large display visible to performers and crew. It matters because several clocks exist on a site: the organiser's, the sound engineer's, and the one on the broadcast feed. If they disagree by a minute, a live cut can land in the wrong place.

A curfew is the time after which no sound may come from a stage, often set by the local licence. A hard stop means the show ends at that moment regardless of what is left. Both change how we plan a broadcast, because a closing song cut short cannot be repeated.

We ask at the first planning call which clock is the master and who has the authority to call a stop. Agreeing this before the day costs a short conversation. Agreeing it during a running over set costs a great deal more, and usually in front of an audience.

Talkback is the intercom that links the gallery to camera operators, stage managers and engineers. It is not a chat line. On a busy show only the director and a few others speak freely; everyone else listens and answers briefly. This discipline is what keeps a gallery calm when a hundred things happen at once.

A cue is an instruction to do something at a given moment: take camera two, roll the graphic, bring up the screen feed. Cues are called in a fixed form so that no one has to guess what was meant. A good call is short, clear and said once.

We brief every operator on the talkback rules before doors open. If a client or organiser wants to join the channel, we are glad to arrange a listen-only line. It lets them follow the show without the risk of a stray remark going out to the whole crew during a critical cut.

• Director calls the cues
• Operators answer briefly
• Listen-only lines for guests

People often say the screens when they mean three different things. There is the programme feed, which is what goes out to broadcast or stream. There are the venue screens, which show the crowd a version of the stage. And there are confidence monitors, which show performers what the audience sees.

These can carry the same picture or different ones. A festival may want live camera cuts on the big screens, a cleaner feed with no graphics for the stream, and a separate loop for the sponsor area. Each is a separate output with its own routing.

Before a show we ask which screens exist, who supplies the content for each and who decides when they change. Naming the outputs clearly on paper avoids a common misunderstanding: an organiser expecting the stream to match the big screens exactly, when the two were always going to carry different material.

A call sheet is the single page that tells every person on a production where to be and when. For a festival broadcast it should include load-in time, stage times, changeover lengths, the master clock, curfew and the names and mobile numbers of the people who can make decisions on the day.

It should also say where the gallery sits, how cables run and who holds the keys to any locked areas. These details look dull, but a missing radio channel or a locked gate can cost a crew an hour before any camera is switched on.

We are happy to read a draft call sheet and point out what a broadcast crew would want added. A short review a week or two ahead tends to settle most of the questions that otherwise arrive by phone on the morning of the show.

• Load-in and stage times
• Master clock and curfew
• Decision-makers and contacts