The Stage Clock Challenge #1

The Backstage Tetris Challenge! This isn't a hypothetical exercise, this actually happened at a festival I did this summer. If you were the Stage Manager, what would you do?

The Stage Clock Challenge #1

The Backstage Tetris Challenge

This isn’t a hypothetical exercise.

This actually happened at a festival I worked this summer.

If you were the Stage Manager, what would you do?

If you’ve read a few of my posts, you’ll know I bang on about two things:

Space.

Time.

Nearly every backstage problem eventually boils down to one or both.

Here’s a real problem from a festival I worked this summer. I’ve changed the names, but everything else is exactly as it happened.

You’re the Stage Manager, what do you do?

Remember... the stage clock doesn’t stop just because you’ve run out of space.

Here’s the running order, showing stage times, set lengths, changeover times, and pre-agreed load-in times.

Here’s the running order;

Sunday’s Headliner

Sunburnt Marley

🚛 3 trucks

🚌 6 buses

📍 Travelling overnight from Scotland

🕥 ETA: 10:30

⏰ Load-in starts immediately

🎤 Soundcheck: 12:00–13:00

🚪 Arena opens: 14:00

Once they’re built, the plan is to roll the entire production offstage and store it backstage until showtime.

Here’s the to-scale overview of the stage

And here’s the headliner’s footprint; these are all to scale

And finally, here’s the footprint of the remaining 4 artists

Here’s the problem...

When the headliner’s stuff is rolled off, it will fill the entire backstage area.

There isn’t enough room for the other four artists to build, whilst another one is onstage performing.

In other words, you’ve run out of backstage space.

The Rules Of This Challenge

You cannot:

❌ Delay opening the arena.

❌ Cancel the soundcheck.

❌ Make the headliner smaller, or remove equipment from risers

❌ Delay stage times, or cancel performances

❌ Upset the visiting artists.

❌ Stack any risers on top of each other (Doh!)

❌ You can not defy the laws of physics

Your Job As Stage Manager

You’ve got:

· One stage

· Five artists

· One large 3x artic truck headline production

· A second artist arriving with another truck full of kit

· A third artist with enough instruments to start their own music shop

· And everyone needs or wants at least three hours to build backstage, but it seems there’s nowhere to put it.

Current time: 10:20

The headliner’s trucks have just arrived at Blue Gate.

The radios are already crackling.

What’s your plan?

What decisions would you make, stood on that stage with the clock ticking down?

Leave your solution in the comments.

I’ll tell you what actually happened in a few days.

Remember...

There’s never enough space.

There’s never enough time.

Welcome to Stage Management.

Good luck!