A rehearsal can change your expected finish without changing the original plan. Keep planned durations intact, record measured actuals separately, and calculate a projection from those inputs. That gives your crew a useful comparison: what you intended, what you measured, and where the difference reaches later cues.
Keep durations and buffers separate
For a sequential show, the next planned start equals the previous start plus its planned duration and buffer. For the projection, use an actual duration when one is recorded and the planned duration when the actual is blank. Keep the same buffer unless you deliberately revise the plan.
A blank actual means “not measured.” Zero means the cue took no time. Those are different inputs. Also decide whether your last cue has a buffer: if it does, include that buffer when reporting the finish.
The fictional Studio Night example
Studio Night begins at 18:30. Its six planned cues and buffers are:
- Doors and guest arrival: 25 minutes, then a five-minute buffer.
- Welcome from the host: five minutes, no buffer.
- Creative showcase: 18 minutes, then a four-minute buffer.
- Audience conversation: 15 minutes, then a two-minute buffer.
- Closing remarks: three minutes, no buffer.
- Guest departure and reset: 15 minutes, no buffer.
The cues total 81 minutes and the buffers total 11, giving a 92-minute plan and a 20:02 finish. During the fictional rehearsal, arrival takes 27 minutes and the welcome takes six. The two measured overruns add two minutes and one minute. With other actuals blank, the projection uses their planned durations and finishes at 20:05.
Trace the change through the sequence: welcome moves from 19:00 to 19:02; showcase from 19:05 to 19:08; audience conversation from 19:27 to 19:30; closing from 19:44 to 19:47; departure from 19:47 to 19:50. The three-minute difference persists because nothing later has been measured shorter or deliberately changed.
Copy this blank cue sheet
- Event title, date and local start time:
- Cue number and title:
- Owner:
- Planned duration in minutes:
- Actual duration, blank if unmeasured:
- Buffer after this cue:
- Planned start and finish:
- Projected start and finish:
- Crew notes:
- Overall planned finish:
- Overall projected finish and difference:
- Version/date shared with the crew:
Use the projection to make a decision
An overrun does not tell you which cue to shorten. Review the result with the relevant owners, decide whether the plan should change, and issue a clearly identified current version. Avoid quietly deleting a buffer just to make the total look better.
These calculations use the event's local wall clock. If your plan crosses midnight, include the next day's date or an explicit day label. Handle time-zone or daylight-saving changes separately. A projection from entered numbers is not a live countdown or evidence of the show's current position.
An optional tool for this workflow
Run of Show Desk adds cue reordering, planned-versus-actual projections, editable JSON and crew HTML exports. It costs $29 USD once for the delivered desktop-browser version. It uses manual saves and has no live show control or cloud collaboration. The blank cue sheet above is free to copy without an email signup.
View Run of Show Desk — $29 USD once
Late start or longer duration? Keep the cause visible
Consider a separate fictional event: start at 10:00, Welcome for five minutes, then Presentation for ten, with no buffers and all actuals blank. Both finishes are 10:15. Save your original editable JSON before trying alternatives.
Longer cue: enter eight minutes as Welcome's actual duration. Welcome still starts at 10:00, but ends at 10:08. Presentation now projects from 10:08 to 10:18, three minutes later than planned.
Late start: instead, leave both original actuals blank and keep the 10:00 start. Add a “Startup hold” cue and move it before Welcome. Set planned duration to 0, actual duration to 3 and buffer to 0. Assign an owner and note the measured wait. Welcome now projects from 10:03 to 10:08; Presentation still runs from 10:08 to 10:18. The zero-duration review warning is expected: the hold reserves no planned time but records the delay.
These alternatives reach the same finish through different causes. Count each interval once. Entering both a three-minute hold and an eight-minute Welcome produces a 10:21 finish, six minutes late. Use both only if the wait and longer Welcome are separate measured intervals.
Changing the event start to 10:03 with all actuals blank moves both finishes to 10:18 and shows “On plan.” That revises the baseline; it does not preserve lateness against 10:00. Keep separately identified saved versions when revising the plan. The app calculates from entered durations; it does not capture actual start times or monitor the event.