How to brief a technical director before a live show

The first thing I ask any organiser for is the running order, even a rough one. Kit lists are useful, but a technical director works from time: what happens at what minute, who walks on, which camera needs to be where, and when the lights change. A running order that shows set lengths, changeovers and any speeches tells me where the pressure points are long before we reach the venue.

If the order is still moving, say so. A draft marked clearly as a draft is more helpful than a tidy document that quietly goes out of date. I would rather know that the headline act might swap slots than discover it during the soundcheck. Send updates as they happen and keep one version as the current one, so the whole crew reads the same page.

Include the end time as well as the start. Overruns affect crew breaks, venue curfews and streaming platform schedules, and a clear finish point lets us plan accordingly.

• Running order with timings, even if provisional
• Named contact who can confirm changes quickly
• Hard finish time set by the venue or platform

Talkback is the nervous system of a live gallery, and it works best when it is kept deliberate. Before show day, list the people who need to hear the gallery: camera operators, the stage manager, the lighting desk, the audio engineer and anyone running graphics or playback. Each of those people also needs to know who may speak and when.

A common problem is too many voices. If every department chats freely, the cue that matters gets lost. I usually agree a simple rule with the stage manager: the director calls cameras and cuts, the stage manager calls performers and cues, and everyone else keeps to short, necessary messages.

If you are using your own venue crew, tell us which headsets and channels already exist. Matching our system to yours is quick when we know about it in advance, and slow when we find out on the day.

• Names and roles for each talkback position
• Who calls performers, and who calls cameras
• Existing venue intercom, if there is one

Camera operators do their best work when they know what is expected of them without having to ask during the show. A one-page shot plan helps: camera numbers, positions, lens choices and the main job of each. Camera one might hold the wide, camera two follow the lead performer, camera three pick up audience and detail shots.

We build this with you rather than hand it down. You know the event and the moments that matter to the people watching, whether that is a presentation, a surprise guest or a particular song. We know what the cameras can deliver from their positions and where sightlines will be blocked.

Walk the room together if you can. Ten minutes standing where each camera will sit often reveals a pillar, a speaker stack or a lighting rig that nobody had drawn on the plan.

• Camera positions marked on a simple floor plan
• One main job for each camera operator
• Known obstructions: pillars, rigs, speaker stacks

Rehearsal is where a technical director earns the calm of the real show. The aim is not only to check that every camera produces a clean picture, but to run the cues: the call, the response, the cut. A cue that has been spoken aloud three times in rehearsal tends to be delivered smoothly on the night.

If time is short, prioritise the opening, the most complicated changeover and the ending. These are the moments where mistakes are most visible and most costly. Skipping a straightforward middle section is a sensible trade; skipping the opening is not.

Record the rehearsal if you can. Watching it back with the director and vision mixer shows quickly where a camera was late, where a graphic collided with a face and where the talkback was unclear, and it costs very little to arrange.

• Rehearse the opening and the hardest changeover first
• Run the real spoken cues, not just the pictures
• Record the run for a short review afterwards

Something will change on a live show. A microphone fails, a performer arrives late, a platform drops a connection. What separates a calm gallery from a tense one is knowing in advance who makes the decision. We agree this early: the technical director decides what the cameras and the programme output do, and your named contact decides anything that affects the event itself.

Keep the chain short. If a decision needs three people to agree, it will not be made in time. One person on your side with the authority to say hold, go or skip is worth more than a committee in the green room.

We also agree a fallback for the common failures: a spare camera angle, a held graphic, a pre-agreed way to fill thirty seconds. Writing these down beforehand means nobody invents them under pressure.

• One named decision-maker on the event side
• Fallbacks for a dead camera or a late performer
• A plain signal for holding the programme

A short pack of information makes the difference between arriving prepared and arriving curious. We ask for the running order, the venue contact and load-in times, the floor plan if one exists, any graphics or lower-thirds text, and the list of people who will be on talkback. None of this needs to be polished.

It also helps to tell us what the audience at home or online should feel they are watching: a formal ceremony, a loud concert, a relaxed panel. That steers the pace of cutting and the choice of shots more than any technical specification.

If you are unsure what to include, send what you have and we will ask for the rest. Hannah, our production manager, keeps a simple checklist and will chase the gaps politely so that nothing is left until show day.

• Running order and venue load-in times
• Graphics text and names for captions
• Talkback list and decision-maker contact