Building a Run of Show for an Activity
How to break a schedule activity into a timed, cue-by-cue run of show with your own department columns, reorder segments, and print the rundown.
A run of show is a timed, ordered breakdown of one activity. Where an activity says what happens and when, a run of show takes that activity and expands it into a cue-by-cue rundown across the teams involved. The detail stays nested inside the activity, so the main schedule stays readable while keynotes, performances, and technical sequences get the depth they need.
Open a Run of Show
Every activity has one. Open the activity from the schedule, then select the expand icon in the dialog's header to open the activity's page. The Run of Show tab is the first tab, next to Advances and Resources.
To see every run of show on the event in one place, go to Schedule > Run of Show. It lists each activity that has at least one segment, with a search box.
Start a Run of Show from Scratch
On Schedule > Run of Show, select Create run of show. Give it a name, a start time, and an end time. BackOps creates a global activity with that name and time and opens its run of show, ready for segments.
How a Run of Show Is Structured
A run of show is a grid of rows and columns.
Each row is a segment: one moment in the sequence. A segment has a name, a duration entered as hours, minutes, and seconds (00:00:00), and a color. Its start time is worked out for you from the activity's start and the durations of the segments before it, and is recalculated whenever you change a duration or reorder segments.
Each column is yours to define, typically one per department or role, such as Audio, Lighting, Video, Script, or Stage Management. Add, rename, resize, and reorder columns to match how your team runs the show. Every cell is a rich text editor, with / commands for formatting.
Reading across a row tells you what every department is doing at that moment. Reading down a column follows one team through the whole show.
Reorder Segments
Drag a segment by its handle to move it. The start times recalculate from the new order.
Print the Run of Show
Select Print at the top of the activity page. The printout is a table of each segment's name, start time, and duration, followed by your columns, headed with the event name, activity name, and time.