Running a bill when the bill stops behaving

The next cue is not always the next cue

A variety bill goes wrong in a particular way: an act overruns, an act drops out, the compere covers, two acts swap because a prop is not ready. What you need at that moment is to send the sound somewhere else in the list without stopping what is playing. The cursor and the playing track are separate here, so during the current act you move the highlight to whatever is actually happening next — six rows down, or back up to something already used — and press play when the stage is ready. The header spells out both: what is playing, and what play will start.

A reset that runs long has to be covered, not waited out

Circus and burlesque both involve stage business between acts — a rig check, a mat, a mess. Silence during it is the thing the audience notices. Put holding music on a pad and hold the room for as long as the reset takes; press it again and it fades out under the compere. Because nothing on the playlist advances by itself, a two-minute reset and a six-minute reset are the same problem, and neither of them fires the next act’s music at an empty stage.

An act that pulls out should not break the file

Highlight the rows that have gone and move them together, or drag one act above another; the cursor and whatever is playing follow the tracks themselves rather than their row numbers, so reordering during a show cannot repoint the sound at the wrong thing. If a file is missing because a drive was unplugged, the row stays where it is and is flagged rather than silently disappearing — the running order you built is still the running order.

Ten acts, ten sets of files, one night

Save the bill as one file with every act’s music in it, named by act rather than by filename. Collect the whole show into a single folder and it carries on a memory stick to the next venue and opens with nothing missing, on either a Mac or a Windows machine — one license covers both, which matters when the show travels and the laptop at the other end is not yours.

An act has dropped out mid-show. What do I do?

Move the cursor past them while the current act is still playing. Nothing stops, nothing fires, and play starts whatever you landed on.

Can I hold music over a reset and fade it under the compere?

Put it on a pad. Press once to hold the room, press again and it fades out over whatever fade length you have set.

We tour. Will the show open on the venue’s machine?

Collect the show into one folder and every file travels with it, with the paths recorded relative to that folder. It opens on Mac or Windows, and one license covers both.