Notes from the room, the stream and the build.
Written by the person building EventBlok, mostly about the parts of live events that go wrong quietly. Practical, specific, and occasionally about a night that did not go to plan.
How EventBlok started: from live event chaos to an AWS-supported proof of concept
An event should have one connected structure, not five disconnected versions of the truth. This is where that idea came from, and what an early proof of concept taught us about where AI belongs in a live show.
Read the article →What is a showflow? A practical guide to the live-event running order
A showflow is the cue-level running order a production crew calls a live event from. This is what belongs in one, how it differs from an agenda, and how to build one that survives contact with a real show day.
How to write a run of show for a live event
A run of show is the minute-by-minute document the production team delivers from. Here is the structure that works, the columns worth keeping, and the discipline that stops it drifting out of date before doors.
Event agenda vs showflow vs run sheet: what each document is actually for
These three documents describe the same event to three different audiences, and confusing them is why events end up with five versions of the truth. Here is what each is for, who reads it, and how they should relate.
What event production software should connect — and what should remain separate
Not everything in an event belongs in one system. Here is a working rule for what should share a record, what should integrate, and what is better left alone — and why "all-in-one" is usually the wrong question.
How to manage live agenda changes without confusing attendees or crew
Agendas change during events. The damage comes from the gap between the decision and everyone finding out. Here is how to shorten that gap, who to tell in what order, and what to do when you cannot tell everyone.
What makes a good attendee event portal?
Most attendees use an event portal for about ninety seconds at a time, standing up, on a phone, deciding where to go next. Here is what that means for what a portal should show, and what most of them get wrong.
How to prepare speakers for a live event without chasing documents
Speaker chasing is the single most reliable time sink in event production. It is also mostly a structural problem rather than a diligence problem. Here is how to reduce it, and what to do about the speakers who never reply.
How a live-event teleprompter should work with a running order
A teleprompter at a live event is not a video autocue. It has to follow a speaker who goes off script, survive a running order that changes, and never show the operator something different from the crew. Here is what that requires.
Showflow examples and a free showflow template you can download
Two showflow templates you can download as CSV — one for a single room, one for a multi-room, multi-day programme — with worked examples, every column explained, and what to change before you use them.
How to crew an event: which roles you need, and how many
Crewing is a question about positions, not headcount. Which roles a live event actually needs, how the number scales with rooms and hours, when to call each position, and the crewing mistakes that show up at 15:40 rather than at 09:00.
How to choose an AV company you can trust
A trustworthy AV supplier is identifiable before you sign anything — from what they ask you, what their quote itemises, and what they tell you they cannot do. What to ask for, what a good answer sounds like, and the warning signs worth walking away from.
Why publish an online agenda for delegates?
An online agenda changes when the programme changes, which a printed one cannot. What it gives delegates, what it gives you, the honest version of the environmental case, and what you should still print anyway.
How to design a great event stage
A stage is a machine for making one person visible and audible to a room. This is how height, sightlines, screen position and walk-on routes decide whether it works — before anything is dressed.
Voice recognition and auto-prompting: how speech-following teleprompters work
A speech-following prompter matches what it hears to where it is in the script and scrolls to match. This is how that works, where it fails, and why the operator still matters.
Real-time showflow updates: getting a change onto every device
A running order that is right on one screen and wrong on five others is worse than one everybody knows is out of date. This is how live updates actually behave on real venue networks.
LED walls for live events: pitch, processing and what to ask for
Pixel pitch, panel sizes, processors and content resolution decide whether an LED wall reads cleanly or looks like a mistake. This is what to specify, and what to ask a supplier.
vMix for live events: a producer’s guide to the vision mix
vMix is a software vision mixer that runs on a Windows PC. This is what it does, what it needs underneath it, and how it fits the running order the rest of the crew is working to.
Beyond the sheet: how to source and vet a hybrid event technical crew
A hybrid stream is a live television broadcast, and a standard venue AV package is not crewed for one. The three specialists you actually need, what to ask before you book, and how to align them with the running order.
An advanced showflow template pack, and how to run a show from it
Six Excel showflows that track planned, actual and forecast time in the same row — so when the keynote overruns, the spreadsheet tells you what it costs and what you can still recover.
How EventBlok started: from live event chaos to an AWS-supported proof of concept
An event should have one connected structure, not five disconnected versions of the truth. This is where that idea came from, and what an early proof of concept taught us about where AI belongs in a live show.
Why an event should have one source of truth
Programme data gets rebuilt in a spreadsheet, a website, a set of speaker documents, a showflow and a script. Here is what that actually costs, measured in the only currency an event has: time on the day.
The agenda is not just for attendees
Most tools treat the agenda as a publishing artefact. Structure it properly and it becomes the foundation for production, speaker preparation, locations and every live change that follows.
What a production showflow should do that a spreadsheet cannot
Spreadsheets are excellent at rows. A showflow is not rows. It is cue-level context, department views, live timing and a shared state that everyone on comms can act on.
Why live events still need human judgement in the age of AI
Event Brain can structure, suggest and accelerate. It cannot read a room, hear a presenter losing their nerve or decide that the overrun is the right call. The line between those two things is the whole design.
From multi-venue conferences to hybrid events: designing for real event complexity
Buildings, floors, rooms, stages, breakouts, exhibition areas and online spaces. Real events are shaped like estates, and a flat list of room names cannot hold them.
A better way to prepare speakers for the room
Most speaker anxiety is logistical, not rhetorical. Where do I stand, when do I start, who introduces me, what happens when I finish. Answer those and the content takes care of itself.
What happens when the running order changes five minutes before doors
The change itself takes ten seconds. Propagating it to five documents, three teams and a published programme is what costs the day — and why multi-device sync is not a convenience feature.
Shoflo, Cvent, Sched: what each is actually for
Event software is four or five different categories wearing similar words. A plain reading of what each one is built to do, and how to work out which problem you actually have.
How the sync layer works
What travels when a cue moves, what deliberately does not, and why the hardest part of real-time is deciding which changes are allowed to surprise someone mid-show.
Plan the event. Publish the programme. Run the show.
One event spine, many views. Build the programme once, then give every person the right live view of it.