An agenda tells the audience what happens. A run order tells the crew how. The difference matters: "10:00 Welcome from the CEO" is an agenda line; the run order version is four lines covering the walk-on music, the camera shot, the name strap, the microphone and who cues her.
What a run order contains
Every row is one thing that happens, in time order. The columns crews expect are: item number (so people can say "we're on item 14" on comms); start time and duration; the item itself in plain words; source — which camera, playback, remote feed or screen share; audio — which mics are live, whether a video has embedded sound; graphics — lower thirds, holding slides, poll overlays; who is on; and notes for anything unusual. Long shows also carry a running "actual" time column that the producer fills in live to track drift.
Granularity: minutes, not sessions
The most common mistake is writing the run order at session level. A 45-minute panel isn't one line — it's the intro (presenter, cam 1, name strap), the panel wide (cam 2, all mics live), the pre-recorded VT in the middle (playback, embedded audio, mics muted), the audience Q&A (moderator on cam 1, questions on screen from the platform), the wrap (presenter, cam 1) and the transition to the break (holding slide, music bed). Each of those is a cue, and every cue is a row.
Timings that survive contact with reality
Build in buffers at the moments that always overrun: after keynotes, before breaks, at the end of Q&A. Mark which items are fixed (the 12:00 announcement that's been trailed to the press) and which are flexible (the panel can lose five minutes). When the show runs late — it will — the producer already knows where to claw time back.
The pre-show and post-show belong in it
The run order starts at crew call, not at the top of the show. Line check, remote speaker checks, platform go-live, holding loop, the "two minutes to live" call. It ends after the last viewer sees the last slide: the closing graphic, the stream stop, the recording save, the platform close. If it isn't written down, someone forgets to stop the recording — we've seen the 90-minute empty-studio recordings.
Versioning and distribution
Number your versions and put the version and date in the header. Circulate a locked version 24 hours before show day; changes after that are called on comms and pencilled in, never re-issued as a new document during the show. Print copies for the gallery. Screens fail; paper doesn't.
Common mistakes we see
- No item numbers, so nobody can reference a cue quickly on comms.
- Sources missing — "CEO keynote" without saying whether she's in the room, remote, or pre-recorded.
- Audio ignored entirely; the graphics operator plays a VT and the room hears nothing.
- No buffers, so a five-minute overrun at 10 a.m. wrecks the whole afternoon.
- Different departments working from different versions.
Download our run order template — the same layout we use in the gallery — and adapt it to your show.