Nail Your Show: Production & Scheduling Tips

What do Producers do?

Oh boy, where should we start with that one?

The art of getting all the people, the venues, the locations, set and props all to come together at the right time.  Sounds easy, right?  Of course not, anyone who has tried to get more than 2 people to agree on a time and a place will have realised that this is harder than it seems.

Here are some things that can help.

A Central Point of Truth

Keeping your data all in one place will help not only you but all the people that come after you. It sounds obvious but so many organisations find themselves managing data accross multiple locations and systems.

It may be that you can't use the same systems for everything, calendars, contacts, invoicing, ticketing, audience information; but having a way for these systems to talk to each other would be a big help.

But let's start with the easiest one; storing your documents.


Store all documents on a cloud service 

There are a number of different options for this available, the service you choose will depend upon the devices that you are using to access your documents.  Whatever you choose, it is best that you choose the paid for option for your business,  remember there is no such thing as a "free lunch"; this option probably means that you are waiving your data privacy.

Which service to choose?  If all of your users are using the same type of device, then this is easy but when you have users on Windows, MacOS, android, iPhone, Linux, etc. you need to check how easy the service is to access.

Some providers include

  • Google
  • OneDrive
  • Apple iCloud
  • Nextcloud
  • Box
  • DropBox

Some offer a fully integrated solution whereas others are more like a simple file sharing platform.  The one you choose really does depend on your existing setup and how you see your organisation growing in the future.

Be wily

Think ahead to make finding your documents easy.

  • Choose a consistent file naming system
  • Create a policy which outlines a logical folder structure

Security

Most importantly, ensure that your data is secure.  Make sure that the right people have the right access and review this every time someone new joins and most importantly when someone leaves.

  • Ensure that the right permissions are given to the right people
  • Use strong passwords (I recommend using a password manager)
  • Don't allow users to share logins
  • Use multi factor authorisation - this will require you to use another verification on top of a password, e.g. a text code to your mobile
  • Don't leave devices with the default super admin password - e.g. Admin 123456

Scheduling

It is important that you can share calendar(s) between all of your staff and freelancers. Giving them a copy of a spreadsheet is clunky, hard to read and leads to confusion when the spreadsheet is updated (which version is the latest?)

You can use online calendars so long as there is not too much complexity in the number people at each event.  For example you can create a calendar for each group of staff/freelancers and then combine these all onto one main calendar to check for errors or overlaps.  Be careful not to share calendar information publically or with the wrong staff / freelancers.

StageSwift will deals with any complexity seamlessly allowing every individual to see their own individual calendar on their mobile whilst the producer / tour manager can see all the events for all the crew & performers.  You don't need to worry about privacy.

Location / Venue booking

If only all of your venues and/or locations would take bookings during the same time period, you would be able to get that mythical tour with short hops between bookings looping back to the start!

Alas, there isn't a tool to force this to happen.  However you can make life easier by flagging events that have not been confirmed.  Colour coding helps to make those outstanding bookings stand out.  Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can help you to keep abreast of your timeline of conversations. CRMs are also really good for setting up reminders to chase bookings or hire tasks.

In StageSwift, you can mark events "To Be Confirmed" and bookings to be "Provisional" until they are ready.

Communications

These days there are so many ways in which we communicate.  This is fantastic but not so handy if messages are coming at you from all different sources; that way leads to confusion with the location of that important message being unclear and messages getting lost.

Pick one way to communicate and stick to that or if you need to have a more official backup of your messaging, such as an email trail, make sure that same message is communicated by the the main channel.

Sometimes it is best to go with the channel of least resistance, the one that everyone already uses but there are benefits in using a more work specific channel in that your messages do not get lost amongst a plethora of messages unrelated to work.

Whatever you choose, keep an eye on how it is working.  Workflows evolve and sometimes a simple solution can blossom into a complicated nightmare!

StageSwift keeps all your production data in one place so that the show can still go on even if you are no longer working on that project.
Drop us a line if you want to find out more about how StageSwift make things simple.