Operator guide

This page is for the people who run the day: the operator at the desk, with a laptop and a tablet as backup, and the room coordinator standing in a room with a phone. Everything happens on the Live board — Run → Live in the app.

A stage plays its call sheet unless something takes it. A take — a GO, a preset, a session going live or your hand on a tile — always wins, and Release (Back to schedule on a phone) gives the stage back to its call sheet. A show is a list of cues: GO puts the next cue live on the stages it names and leaves every other stage alone. A live show holds its stages: only its controller moves them. Rooms can also run with no show at all — their sessions go live on time by themselves.

• Every screen is Online — a green dot on Venue → Stages.
• Every tile shows what you expect — each says what the stage plays and why (Call Sheet, Show cue, Taken by hand, Idle). A tile that surprises you now will surprise the audience later.
• Your show is Ready and you are one of its operators. A Draft cannot run: ask the planner to hand it to its operators.
• The desk is live — the line under the board’s title says Live, and Presenter streaming: OK.
• Presenters are backstage or on their way — see Run → Backstage.

A test run rehearses the event day on site, before it happens. The whole workspace runs on a test clock: every paired screen, every presenter link, the audience pages and the room check-in codes behave as they will at that moment of the day. It needs no update on the screens.

1. On the Live board, press Test run (on a phone it sits above the rooms). Owners and editors can.
2. Pick the moment: slide over the day, or tap a jump — Check-in opens, 5 min before or Start of a session — and press Start test run at …. The clock runs on at normal speed from there, or faster: ×2, ×5 or ×10 under Speed.
3. Within a few seconds every screen plays what it would play then, with a small TEST RUN mark in the corner, and their clocks and countdowns show the test time. A banner on the board shows it too. (Screen-off hours still follow the real clock.)
4. Rehearse for real: a speaker opens their normal link and checks in, presses I’m ready, goes live, hands over and finishes; guests post from their phones; you Take, GO and release as on the day.
5. Change time jumps again at any moment — say to five minutes before the next session.
6. End test run (press twice). The screens go back to real time.

When the test ends, everything made during it is deleted — posts, photos and videos, questions, guests, take-home links, check-ins and the lines in What happened — and sessions, screens, shows and engagements go back to how they were when the test started. Nothing made before the test is touched.

The board is the same desk everywhere; only its shape changes with the device.

• Laptop — the stage tiles on the left, each with the stage’s live picture; on the right, Sessions, Run of show, Presets and What happened.
• Tablet — the tiles scroll on top, and a bar stays pinned to the bottom: the next cue, Back, a big GO, Blackout, and Sessions, Presets and What happened as sheets. Tap a tile’s picture for that stage’s sheet.
• Phone — GO mode, one column for one thumb: the show’s Now, Next and GO (or who controls it), the Rooms, the Screens, Presenter sessions, Presets, What happened and Blackout every screen. Tap a screen for its sheet.

See On a laptop, a tablet or a phone for pictures of each.

One controller at a time: Hand over control asks another operator to take the desk, and nothing changes hands until they press Accept. Another operator of the show can Request control from their own desk.

• Put on… — a story or black on one stage, now. On a tablet or a phone, tap the stage and use its sheet: Black, Put a story on….
• Presets — a saved setup (Break, Doors open) live on every stage it names, in one press. Pinned presets come first.
• Release / Back to schedule — one stage back to its call sheet.
• Release all — hands every screen back to the Call Sheet. It asks twice, like Blackout.
• Undo — restores exactly what was live before the last change.

Every GO, Back, take, release and handover is written to What happened, with who did it and when.

A session happens in a room and, while it is live, shows its presenter on the room’s screens. The Sessions panel lists today’s sessions with their presenters’ status, and its badge lights up when one needs you.

• It switches by itself — a session set to go live on its own does, at its time or when its presenter is ready. You do nothing.
• Presenter ready — Take — a session that waits for an operator lights up when its presenter presses I’m ready. Check that they are really at the lectern, then press Take (Put presenter on on a phone). If a speaker intro is set, it plays first; Skip intro cuts straight to the presenter, Replay intro plays it again.
• Session finished — pressed by you or by the presenter. The screens move on as the session says: back to their call sheet, to the next cue of the show, or to a story. If a screen did not move on, the session offers Try moving the screen on again.

On a stage a live show holds, a session that would go live by itself becomes Presenter ready — Take for that show’s controller instead: the show decides its stages. When Take is refused, the sentence names who decides.

A room is a place in a venue — a hall, a breakout room, the lobby — with the screens in it: a front screen and side screens, or none at all (a breakout room with only a printed QR code). Rooms are set up under Venues → the venue → Rooms; see Rooms and their screens.

A live session drives every screen of its room, so the front and side screens always show the same thing — unless the session was set to use only some of the room’s screens. Each room also has one check-in QR code for guests, valid all day; see Room check-in.

A room coordinator needs their room only — its screens, its session now and next, its presenter, its audience. On the Live board, open Rooms (a list on the phone, a button in the header on a tablet or a laptop) and pick the room. It opens the room’s own page.

From top to bottom:

1. The session now or next — its title and time, the presenter’s status (On screen, Ready, Backstage, not ready yet, Nobody backstage yet) and one big button: Put presenter on, Presenter ready — Take or Session finished. While the session is live with an intro, Skip intro or Replay intro. Below it, the next session in the room.
2. The show — only when a live show holds the room’s screens: its Now and Next, with Back and GO if you control it, otherwise who does.
3. Engagement — the room’s live engagement: open and close it, approve what waits, Show big a question and mark it answered, see what is on the walls.
4. Screens in this room — what each shows and why, with Back to schedule, Black and More….
5. The whole room — Back to schedule for every screen in the room, and Black out this room (press twice, or hold).

The room page can do nothing the Live board cannot: a screen held by a show someone else controls stays as it is, and the page says so before you press.

Blackout takes every screen to black at once. Because it reaches so many screens, the first press only arms it: the button turns red and counts down. Press again within 3 seconds to fire it; otherwise it disarms by itself. On a touch screen you can hold the button for one second instead. Release all works the same way.

• Blackout stops at screens another live show holds. Even when someone else controls the show on your desk, Blackout still works on the free screens.
• Black out this room, on a room’s page, blacks out only that room’s free screens.
• Pressed by mistake? Back restores the previous takes; or Release all and GO the current cue again.

On a laptop, when you are not typing in a field and no dialog is open:

• Space or Enter — GO. Holding Space, or two presses within a second, count once.
• Backspace — Back.
• B B — Blackout (the second B within 3 seconds).
• R R — Release all.
• Esc — disarm.

On a room’s page, B B and R R reach only that room’s screens.

• A screen shows the wrong thing — read its tile’s why. Call Sheet means the booking is wrong: fix it, or take the stage by hand. A cue or a preset names who took it.
• A take is refused — the sentence names the show that holds the stage. Ask its controller, or wait for the show to end.
• The presenter is not on the projector — is the session Live? Is the presenter sharing? Their picture backstage but not on screen: Take again.
• The status line is amber or red — the desk is behind. Check the room with your own eyes before you GO; reload, or move to another device.