Behind the Scenes with Rundown Studio: Revolutionizing Event Production

[00:00:00] It is something that goes by in many names. A rundown, a run sheet, a cue sheet, a run

[00:00:06] of show, and I even had someone call it a second sucker. What it is, is a living document

[00:00:11] that outlines every minute of an event from opening music to when the stage lights turn

[00:00:16] off. A run sheet is to event planning what a recipe is to cooking. A step-by-step instruction

[00:00:22] on how to bake an amazing event. Today we're talking about a new tool on the scene. A

[00:00:28] most choice if you will. Rundown Studio. Rundown Studio is a cloud-based software designed

[00:00:34] for collaborative planning, queuing, and directing of shows and events. It allows users to create

[00:00:40] and manage detailed rundowns with customized columns, headings, and offers automated queue

[00:00:45] timing for accuracy and facilitates team collaboration. The platform is tailored to keep event timing

[00:00:51] on track and organized, and today we're speaking with the creators. Lucas Herman

[00:00:57] has been a guest before. He's the co-founder of Stagetimer.io, one of my favorite event

[00:01:02] tech tools of the past couple of years. Stagetimer goes beyond a simple countdown timer and serves

[00:01:08] as a crucial tool for precise event timing and seamless segment transitions. Our second

[00:01:14] guest is John Barker. Many of you know him as the founder of Here to Record. Here

[00:01:19] to Record offers educational content via their YouTube channel and innovative software

[00:01:24] development. In fact, some of the software are tools that I use every day. They have

[00:01:29] H2R gear, H2R graphics, H2R stingers, and then I'm also tuning into his YouTube channel

[00:01:36] all the time to actually learn how to use ATEMs and other event production equipment.

[00:01:41] So let's get to it.

[00:01:43] Lucas, John, welcome to the show. How are you?

[00:01:55] Good. Thanks. Thanks for having us.

[00:01:58] Doing fine. Doing fine. Thanks for having us.

[00:02:00] Finally, we have you back, Lucas.

[00:02:02] Yes.

[00:02:03] Excited and back.

[00:02:04] We have Lucas back. And Lucas, I, you know, again, for the two years running, Stagetimer

[00:02:10] was like my top tool of the year, right? It really was. And it still is actually one of

[00:02:15] my favorites. So any updates coming along the way that we should know about before we

[00:02:21] dive into the actual reason why we're here?

[00:02:23] Absolutely. Absolutely. So just to drop a word kind of for people that have never heard

[00:02:27] stage timer. I usually explain it like this if you have ever seen a TED event and there's

[00:02:34] this red clock right in front of the presenter and it counts down 25 minutes. That's

[00:02:39] when they know when they have to stop. And we build a clock like this, not that one, but

[00:02:43] like this and you can tell your presenter on stage and this is how much time you have

[00:02:47] left and give them a message, maybe show it, flash it, draw their attention. Communicate

[00:02:53] better than the traditional way of holding up the paper sign who hasn't done that, right?

[00:02:57] Standing in the back, the paper sign, the arm wiggling and nothing happens. So that's

[00:03:02] what we are trying to replace with our tool.

[00:03:04] Yeah, Tess, you know that. You got the hook. But that is awesome. And everyone out there

[00:03:11] on the planner side, you know, one of the things we try to do is bring planners into

[00:03:16] the tech side, right? Because planners are tech phobic with good reasons, right? It's

[00:03:23] always been like this serious mysterious world and which is why I love the both

[00:03:27] of you because you actually are creating tools that bridge the gap, right? That can be used

[00:03:34] from either side of the event equation. And John, I'm so actually happy that you're here

[00:03:40] because you guys have actually created one of the... It's probably going to end up

[00:03:45] being if not my top new event tech tool of the year, it's going to be really close.

[00:03:53] Well, I was just going to claim it. Then I'm faking it.

[00:03:58] There you go. But, run down studio, which for planners, this is your run of show, right? For

[00:04:09] tech guys, this gets you away from Excel. But I'm actually going to let Lucas and John explain

[00:04:15] what it is so that we can get into some really good questions about this tool and why

[00:04:19] it's important for meeting and event folks. And layers on top of that, everyone in the world knows

[00:04:26] I'm focused on execution in day of. So that's why this is my baby.

[00:04:31] So I'm just going to steal one line from John. We have been building this tool together

[00:04:38] starting last year and John kind of like brought me into it kicking and screaming,

[00:04:45] right? And he does like, he has a vision and he does a way better job to explain what it does.

[00:04:50] So I will give the watch in. That's it. That's the intro that you're going to give me.

[00:04:57] John made me do this thing and now he... Oh, I love it. You're all like Keith and I.

[00:05:06] Test. You want to do this? No, he's like, Test, I put you in this.

[00:05:18] Yeah. So the idea behind building Rundown Studio, Lucas very much sums up stage time

[00:05:24] pretty well by saying it's on that screen in front of the presenter telling them to basically

[00:05:30] stop talking. Whereas what we wanted to build with Rundown Studio was sort of what the people

[00:05:36] behind the scenes are using to decide who's coming up next, what happens in an hour's time,

[00:05:42] what needs to be canceled later and needs to be brought forward. So basically the run of show,

[00:05:47] rundown software, there's a lot of different terms that people have thrown out there

[00:05:51] before. And people have used a lot of different tools before to do this exact thing from

[00:05:55] Google Sheets to Pan and Paper to Excel documents, all these different ways that get out of sync.

[00:06:02] Maybe you print the PDF on the start of day one and by the end of day two that PDF has just

[00:06:08] been torn apart in every different direction. So with Lucas' timing abilities and my want to

[00:06:16] build tools just like this, we decided on building the online version of that,

[00:06:22] something that syncs everywhere on the cloud, you can build outputs for people so that

[00:06:27] whether you're techie and you want to see all the versions of all the columns

[00:06:30] or you're not at all and you want to just see what is happening next, that's all I care about,

[00:06:35] then we wanted to cover all of those bases. And I think within a year of building,

[00:06:41] six to eight months of launch, we've gotten many features in there and we have a long list

[00:06:45] of features to go. But we can do a demo or we can jump into anything I wasn't clear about

[00:06:51] already. Well, I think before we happen to demo, you know, planners, a lot of them end up at the

[00:06:59] tech table and looking over the shoulder and they're all going to know this scene. The scene is

[00:07:04] they work really hard to create a run of show or what they would consider a run of show

[00:07:08] and they use Excel for the most part. Then they're going to hand it off to the production

[00:07:12] team or whatever and they're going to add timings and cues and all this great stuff and

[00:07:16] what video asset goes where. And then someone is going to send that off to four other people

[00:07:22] that are going to be working the show or 10 other people, however many it is and on the day of

[00:07:26] where everything's going to go great except for the video guy didn't get the latest update.

[00:07:33] And so all of a sudden, everyone is on the same page except for that one person

[00:07:40] or what happens is people are scribbling on because they're printed copies and they're

[00:07:44] all sitting there. You know, one of the events we did not too long ago, we had these big 11 by

[00:07:48] 11 inch by 17 inch. I don't know what that is in metric, but it's big pieces of paper and

[00:07:55] you know, everyone was scribbling where I think before we dive in and we actually show people

[00:08:01] the tool. It's one source of truth, right? You know, if a planner doesn't want to be

[00:08:06] in the weeds with everything in there, like you said, you can send the link and they can

[00:08:11] see what's coming up. And if there was something that didn't get translated or didn't get put in

[00:08:17] there, they're going to know and they're going to be able to mention it to somebody, you know,

[00:08:21] all the guys at the table are on the same page, you know, much like much like on the event

[00:08:27] management side, the joy software that we love so much, that is it's one source of truth.

[00:08:32] Everything is coming out of one particular, you know, one piece of software. So everyone's

[00:08:37] on the same page at all times. And sorry, I just gave way too much of everybody's time just

[00:08:42] pontificating. But I think it's important that we have a discussion around it because it's really

[00:08:49] around the mindset of things, right? Because we're not only talking to just, you know,

[00:08:56] planners who are novice on the tech side, we're also talking to people who actually run shows

[00:09:00] and this tool would be magnificent for them to kind of relieve them of all the angst that

[00:09:06] they've been having where it's I do it my way and this way and I need to see it like this.

[00:09:11] And then you do it that way. But I think also most importantly, John, the exciting thing to me

[00:09:17] is that now we can begin education to the planner around where they truly fit in the pie and how

[00:09:24] they don't need to be so far off anymore. I think it also can help inform how they choose

[00:09:31] to plan next time. If they're actually you know if they're using it, that's who will properly.

[00:09:36] What do you think about that? Yeah, I think that's that's really fair and a lot of the people I've

[00:09:41] worked with, the show callers that I've worked with so far using Rundown Studio, the way that

[00:09:46] they are trying to integrate into their workflows is they let their producers or the people who

[00:09:52] plan the show work in whatever tool they're comfortable with, and then pull it into the

[00:09:56] into Rundown Studio right maybe the day before or the few days before the show.

[00:10:02] That was a few months ago, but now just working on a show this week, I found that it's starting to

[00:10:08] creep into that pre-production a bit more where the show caller actually give full access to the

[00:10:13] Rundown Studio project to basically everybody on the team about two three weeks before the event

[00:10:20] and now they're bringing in the data a little bit earlier and a little bit earlier. So what's

[00:10:24] we think is quite nice about it is that we have an import tool so you can pull in CSV from whatever

[00:10:30] tool you are already comfortable with, but maybe as you get a bit more comfortable with Rundown

[00:10:35] Studio you can start that in the process a bit earlier and then eventually the plan being that

[00:10:40] you never actually have to use any other tool at all. But if you're not comfortable with

[00:10:44] that then there's a way to work in the meantime. Well and I do want to guess

[00:10:52] taking a look at it, but for planners I think planning has changed. Planners need to be a little

[00:11:00] bit more have a little bit more techno how they need to be involved in this. Because technology

[00:11:09] keeps going like this shows even simple shows are getting more complicated. You've got video

[00:11:17] and stingers and you know all of this stuff that a show a very small show wouldn't have had 10 years

[00:11:22] ago. But because technology now allows us to create these things so quickly and easily

[00:11:28] they can make a small show seem absolutely amazing but you need tools like Rundown Studio in

[00:11:34] order to make them happy. But let's go ahead and take a look at it. Yeah let's take a look.

[00:11:38] Cool let me see how well my screen sharing abilities go. Already off the bad start as I

[00:11:45] find the right window. I don't know you know people know we were in here before we actually

[00:11:49] started recording and it worked perfect there we go. So what what you're looking at here actually is

[00:11:58] something I built in Google Sheets and then just downloaded and imported as CSV just

[00:12:04] 10 minutes ago and a lot of you know example data and all that good stuff but pretty quickly

[00:12:11] I can see the queues as we call them each each um each one of these is a queue and that usually

[00:12:18] holds a piece of information about what's happening at that point in time. And then

[00:12:24] if it's a time-based queue then it will have a duration for that. The start time for this show

[00:12:30] was at 9 a.m. and then the end time I've set to be 11 30 a.m. which is effectively the sum

[00:12:36] of all the queues that are in here each one being you know 20 15 minutes and this is a fairly

[00:12:42] average like two three hour webinar or something along those lines. So that's from top to bottom

[00:12:49] and then looking left to right what we have is what I would consider more departmental.

[00:12:55] The end time is just something as an overhang from the import but beyond that we have like

[00:12:59] something for our hosts and our guests or maybe something for the location you know

[00:13:04] we want to know if this is in the studio or if it's on location or something like that.

[00:13:09] And then we have gfx and vt in this example vt being exactly what you mentioned a few minutes

[00:13:14] ago there where the the vt person didn't have the name of the final file underscore final v2

[00:13:20] and they played the wrong one. Ideally someone's up there. Well let's pause right there John.

[00:13:24] Let's let's define our acronyms for those who don't who are not in our world.

[00:13:30] That is very much which one are we which one are we are we translating I think we need to do gfx

[00:13:36] first then vt. Absolutely so gfx typically is the abbreviation what's the word I always

[00:13:42] forget the difference it's more of a shortening of the word graphics. I don't think it's abbreviation

[00:13:47] is it abbreviation that one I always mix the two up and then vt is sort of an overhang from

[00:13:52] some old broadcast terms vt being videotape or video playback basically playing a video

[00:14:00] during a production or a broadcast. What else we have lt down here as well which is lower third

[00:14:06] so typically the name that comes down here I should have my graphic software up and running on

[00:14:11] my camera right now so I could actually show you that but I don't um so that is three uh

[00:14:17] I think I went pretty easy on the terms in this one so I'm glad I didn't add too many more

[00:14:21] but I didn't anything to explain but fair well you know and this is stuff they don't teach right

[00:14:27] at least I don't think they do they in like the meeting planner school right that you know

[00:14:31] but these are terms that these are everyday terms that your tech crew is throwing around right

[00:14:36] and it really does help you know if you actually understand you don't have to know what each and

[00:14:40] everything is and and for planners they don't need to know how all the machinery works but

[00:14:44] they should know what each thing does um that way they at least have a little bit of knowledge

[00:14:50] and you know we were talking about the file name and get your file naming under control

[00:14:57] there is there should be never video final final final v2 final

[00:15:04] you know we we actually up until the morning of the show actually ours we they're all v1 v2

[00:15:11] whatever and then the final one which you don't name until the morning of is broadcast

[00:15:16] yeah that way there is no confusion whatsoever and we don't have broadcast v1 v2

[00:15:27] so sorry to interrupt no actually on that point because I am always worried about those kind of

[00:15:33] terms and there's been plenty of times where I've been caught on a show and after years of doing it

[00:15:37] someone mentions a term and I'm like I don't know you're sometimes you don't want to ask but

[00:15:41] you kind of have to anyway we just published a post like yesterday at the very bottom of which

[00:15:46] we have added it's a show calling 101 and we've added a little bonus show lingo um term here so

[00:15:55] lots of little terms that I've paired over the years that make sense when you know them and

[00:15:59] don't make any sense when you don't uh so I'm I love it so what we'll do we'll put that link in

[00:16:04] our um show notes for them oh yeah that's gonna be that should actually just be required reading

[00:16:10] there you go so

[00:16:15] so I I've got a question um so are you actually pushing the graphics and videos out from here

[00:16:25] or is this just the rundown this is just the rundown of course we have lots of different

[00:16:30] ideas for the future but right now what we wanted to build was like the easiest and

[00:16:37] um simplest tool of this kind of structure and we have so many ideas to get that right

[00:16:44] that we are you know way down the path if we even want to get to pushing stuff out when I get there

[00:16:50] so right now it's it's uh it's sort of like the information hub as opposed to triggering or anything

[00:16:55] like that yeah and I don't and I want everyone to know I don't actually mean that is a bad thing

[00:16:59] right sometimes this is exactly the tool that's needed and right now this is actually the tool

[00:17:04] that is needed exactly and I personally you know I don't know what you'll consider but I just love it

[00:17:10] and this is to me one of the major problems in our industry on the vent tech side is big boys come

[00:17:16] and take over and um great tech is gobbled up and goes dark when it was a tool that solved

[00:17:25] a problem which is why tech exists to begin with so I'm advocating around you do this you

[00:17:31] do this well please just keep doing this and expanding everything around this you don't need

[00:17:36] to be everything to everyone because to me again the reason that you create it can get lost so

[00:17:42] this is to me amazing good actually let me mention something about that um from the beginning we

[00:17:48] kind of talked how do we how do we want to build it do we want to do the startup route

[00:17:52] or do we don't go bootstrapping and we decided both we want to do bootstrapping

[00:17:56] bootstrapping meaning financing it with our own means not getting outside investment at the same

[00:18:02] time keeping complete uh kind of control right off the project and I think both John and I we

[00:18:10] really we have a love for the product we have a love for making a job easier to a person that

[00:18:16] uses our tool um yeah so there's no plan like to exit in five years or to you know go public

[00:18:23] or to disson this or to like push artificially our numbers to growth it's like thank you growing it

[00:18:29] growing it slowly making it so people can use it and I'm happy with the tool is really the

[00:18:34] goal at this point thank you thank you thank you and we got that on recording everybody we got it

[00:18:39] on recording and and I don't want to keep tooting both your horns but but I mean every

[00:18:45] product that I've actually seen come from the both of you has actually been easy to use

[00:18:52] and something that I actually use quite often right you know like like stage timer absolutely

[00:18:58] right and then you go with um H2R gear that is actually one of my favorite pieces of of tech

[00:19:07] right I know exactly what cables I'm bringing and we you know that's for another episode

[00:19:12] but but again you guys have kind of done it again right it is this is easy enough that anyone

[00:19:20] regardless of their technical know-how can actually understand what's going on

[00:19:26] and I love the cool thing is you know and I know you probably still have more to but you

[00:19:29] know as this thing is playing you can actually you know you know exactly where you are throughout

[00:19:34] the day which um can get crazy I've seen I've seen people looking out at the excel sheet and go

[00:19:41] where are we sorry we're constantly going over I've done it myself plenty of time and I think

[00:19:50] that's one of the one of the weird things about Lucas and I is like I've been on hundreds of shows

[00:19:55] done this many times Lucas has not and so the two of us can come at this from very different

[00:20:00] angles where I'll try to get something in there and he's saying like what what is that

[00:20:04] why would you even need that um so it's a nice marriage between no we're not married

[00:20:10] it's a nice mix between um you know the the the person who's out there doing it and the person

[00:20:15] who's not and hopefully those two things meet somewhere in the middle where people can understand

[00:20:19] it but also pros can actually use it yeah I love it so tell us just show us okay our

[00:20:25] of us that in the panel discussion needs to be moved back an hour because the speaker flew

[00:20:33] in late and then we had a medical emergency exactly so we have I don't want to work on

[00:20:38] your shows if all that's happening I'm stressed I just thinking about it but I'm going to do it anyway

[00:20:44] um so we have this panel discussion here that we let's say the speaker who was was going to be a

[00:20:49] part of that yeah he's coming in later so you can just drag things rearrange them maybe it's

[00:20:54] coming in a bit like this maybe we want to pull the audience q and a up into this section

[00:20:59] we can rename any of these we can maybe make the audience q and a a bit longer to fill some time

[00:21:06] 35 minutes instead and now that will shuffle ahead all of the start and end times and um

[00:21:13] we'll let you rebuild your show as it happens not just up until showtime but you know you can

[00:21:18] be changing things later in the day that whenever the show is running um earlier in the in the

[00:21:23] rundown so all this stuff is you know nothing's locked in and you can see here now something

[00:21:28] that was pretty important to a lot of people that we talked to was we we need to start on time

[00:21:33] and we need to end on time and I added 20 minutes of programming there to this rundown and you can

[00:21:39] see on the top corner that now we're over under we're 20 minutes late so we will need to pull time

[00:21:44] from somewhere within our rundown to do that so maybe we decide that not the most brilliant

[00:21:49] thing in the world skip this panel discussion all together deletes it and now we're back

[00:21:54] running on time again so you can actually end at 11 30 as you planned that's the boom

[00:22:00] that is boom well and I always you know one of the things and this actually this happens at

[00:22:07] pretty much every show right you know you're there the audience hasn't filed in yet they're

[00:22:12] still out in the lobby you know eating their scones and you know chatting away and so you

[00:22:17] end up starting five minutes late and you know you'll you'll ask the client you know you

[00:22:24] know are we going to run over do you still want to end on time well this makes it easy for the

[00:22:29] whole everybody to know exactly what's happening if they go oh we can just run over no harm no foul

[00:22:34] just change your start time and everything changes or you know if you need to cut that time it's

[00:22:39] easy to do it but then absolutely everyone is on the same page right there's no more you know

[00:22:46] guys with their sharpies and then you have the one guy with the broken pencil that's

[00:22:50] you know scratching it out you know we've all been there um now one of the coolest things I thought

[00:22:56] I that that I found with this are the views right and how you can actually share that out

[00:23:03] and share it to other people who might be involved in the event from the people at the

[00:23:07] table all the way to the planner who sits in the corner you know biting his or her nails

[00:23:15] because they're stressed over the whole thing that is a good segue into something we've actually

[00:23:21] released today so uh we've changed the views but not and not for the not for the bad hopefully

[00:23:27] maybe you'll thank otherwise since you like them so much um we have we have a few different ways

[00:23:34] of getting data to people right so we have an export PDF um which is the old school way but

[00:23:39] sometimes people really want a way of seeing this and printing it out um we're going to skip

[00:23:44] that because it's not as important we also have invite guests which we um we like we said before

[00:23:52] we're not really motivated to like squeeze every last penny out of people uh we are quite interested

[00:23:59] in you building a team within rundown studio that you use and work with all time and then you come

[00:24:04] into a show and you have 50 freelancers do you really want to pay 50 times whatever our

[00:24:09] prices to get all them all involved no you don't so we decided this guest mode which lets people see

[00:24:16] certain things or completely read and write everything you can just give them full access and they can

[00:24:21] just do whatever they want to the show with your permission of course um so that's sharing those

[00:24:26] lengths looks just like this where they can see the rundown as you can as you can see it here

[00:24:31] on my screen but then we have the outputs that side of things which is something that's much more

[00:24:36] customizable and like i said today got even more customizable um and what we have built is a way of

[00:24:44] visualizing the entire show in a this is the typical you know list mode of output if i just

[00:24:50] open it up here you'll see that it lists all of my cues one after the other and it's a bit more

[00:24:56] what i would consider ipad friendly you know this is the one i've had up on the ipad and it

[00:25:01] does auto track along i'll show you that second as the show unfolds it keeps following down

[00:25:06] but it's very much a simplified view of the rundown itself and if i head back over again

[00:25:12] we can change things completely which is more of like the you know the downstage monitor the

[00:25:18] the screen that the presenter can see or maybe something you put up on in the production booth

[00:25:23] something that's much more stripped down what is happening right now maybe what's happening next

[00:25:28] and if you see on the right hand side here i'm not going to delve too deep into it because

[00:25:33] we have it documented over on the over on the site but we've added all these fun ways of

[00:25:41] really customizing it to be whatever way you want it to be so for example if i wanted to in

[00:25:46] fact i'll just open it up just so you can see what it looks like right now it has a really big

[00:25:50] text and it has the sort of what's happening right now and it has this top bar which shows some

[00:25:57] bits and pieces but maybe you want to change this logo maybe you want to hide the time of

[00:26:01] day maybe you want to completely hide this top bar then we've built a easy enough way to do that

[00:26:09] what we found again and again with my tools with Lucas's tools is people in our industry if you give

[00:26:15] them tools and decent documentation they will sit all day and they will make it work and i

[00:26:22] find that time and time again with all these things so that's why we went for this option

[00:26:26] documented it heavily and we know that people will just say okay i want this here i want to

[00:26:31] remove that and that's how they can do it yes and we've seen that with the Elgato stream deck

[00:26:38] it's like it came out and everybody in their brother was like oh we can make it do this

[00:26:44] yeah exactly and then of course companion and i want to point out to everyone i don't know if

[00:26:49] you all paid attention he did not move from his screen to get back to the actual tech

[00:26:55] he clicked on every option that he wanted and that's good ux user experience nice so i don't have to go

[00:27:02] from one tab to the other he wanted it he clicked it okay sorry that's a test thing love it um which

[00:27:10] just leaves i suppose running the actual show so showtime comes nice big play button that

[00:27:16] lets you start the show um and what happens from there is everyone who has this page open or

[00:27:22] the output page which i think i still have open yeah here it is uh it it'll just follow along with

[00:27:28] the show as it runs you can see i have a 10 minute segment um maybe the next segment is not 35 minutes

[00:27:34] but five seconds just to make it a little bit easier for demo purposes if i jump to the next

[00:27:41] queue it will play that queue and you can see the progress bar going through the last five

[00:27:45] seconds we have light up here just to let everyone know this thing is ending very soon

[00:27:50] and then we we flash when things are over and as we talked about before if your show is over or under

[00:27:57] it starts to either add to or eat into that time so you know right now i just messed with

[00:28:02] the timings there i know but i have 44 minutes extra of show to make up here so i could just

[00:28:08] let this audience q and a run for 44 minutes if i wanted or i can you know add time later in

[00:28:13] the show it's all constantly figuring out where you are what's coming up and what time you need to

[00:28:20] make available or use up in order to get your show back on time

[00:28:25] may i ask no go ahead pass um so i have a question just about just that in general when

[00:28:31] we're talking about over and under are those is that data being recorded anywhere like if i

[00:28:36] ever had to come back and quote unquote see your report and say how long was this show

[00:28:41] last year how long did it run um were we over or under or how do i need to improve for the future

[00:28:47] does that data stay for me to be able to use that i'm just skipping ahead a few cues here and i'm going

[00:28:53] to scroll back and you can see that we have a basically like a receipt for each um item so the

[00:29:00] audience q and a was supposed to be five seconds no i'm just sorry okay i didn't know that you

[00:29:05] walked me right into that one shot but i that is i didn't even know that that's fairly new that's

[00:29:14] fairly new okay okay so what we have up here and like this how is this time calculated i'll just

[00:29:20] zoom in a little bit because my brain doesn't work very well with mental mass definitely not during

[00:29:24] a show um so i wanted to add this in here to say like what's going on and so you could look back

[00:29:29] in a year's time and say okay well we were supposed to start at nine it looks like we finished one or

[00:29:35] 43 minutes early something went terribly wrong obviously um but you could also say yeah the the

[00:29:42] CEO was supposed to talk for 10 minutes and they only talked for 21 seconds we've got to get the more

[00:29:46] stuff to say next year um we know that you don't believe this i yeah it's quite the opposite right

[00:29:51] never happens never had that ever uh we don't act we don't actively delete that it's just

[00:29:58] going to stay there and you can look back and say oh yeah this is the receipt as i like to call

[00:30:05] okay so that that is worth the price of admission right there yeah i mean i'm just saying i that's why

[00:30:11] i wanted to explore it because it's like again you all create beautiful tech and that's you know

[00:30:18] that's where you it's almost like i can trust any any iterations that are coming down the

[00:30:24] roadmap with you i can trust that you're going to create even more things to make my life happy

[00:30:32] okay i'm stop i'm gonna get off

[00:30:40] so what are some other things that

[00:30:45] what am i not asking because this is like one of those things right like you know we've all seen

[00:30:50] the the simpson's episode you know take my money um you know or whatever whatever that was you know

[00:30:58] the second i saw it and just i you know i've known the products you guys have created so the

[00:31:02] second it came out i was like oh right you know i'll jump right into it to whatever um you know

[00:31:08] what are some other things that that we should be aware of um in here because as it stands like

[00:31:16] as you just explained it it's per it there it's perfect right there really isn't that last thing

[00:31:22] that i didn't even know about the receipts you know to look it back at you know how long something

[00:31:26] actually that that was like the icing on the cake um you know but but what else is in here that we

[00:31:31] might want to know about or maybe something for you know more advanced sure i have folks two

[00:31:39] things that i that come to mind that i wanted to throw in there is that these uh what we call

[00:31:44] cells here um because it's very much you know like spreadsheet style you know rose and columns right

[00:31:50] um these are pretty heavily editable in terms of style and um and how they look so i know that

[00:31:58] a lot of people absolutely love colors which is fair and so if you always have a color for your

[00:32:06] your host you always use red then people use this a ton i was just on a show this week and

[00:32:12] it was like a rgb overload but that's fine because that's that work for them um so you can you can

[00:32:18] go crazy in the cells and if you want this is a feature people really love especially for their

[00:32:23] camera operators who have no idea who to follow they just know that someone's name um you can

[00:32:28] throw images in there as well so here's a way to stop stop stop what stop so i just dropped that

[00:32:36] from my uh desktop here so you could throw in a picture of like guest one and two so everyone

[00:32:43] knows what they look like and they can get a nice shot of them um but one of the things that we're

[00:32:50] always keen on is that there's not one person that has all the information right so back to the

[00:32:54] invite guests thing before what i can do is say well i want my graphics operator to not see

[00:33:02] anything to do with video anything to do with the location they can just see the hosts and get gfx

[00:33:08] but i also want them to edit that as well because they hold the information so i'll set that so that

[00:33:13] they can edit it and if i open that tab or that window up then and share it with them what you

[00:33:19] can see here is they can see the hosts and the guests but if they want they can also go through

[00:33:24] and make changes to the places that you allow them to make changes to but not necessarily

[00:33:28] other places oh and i i realized that i need to open this in a new window to see that but

[00:33:33] you'll you'll have to trust me uh because i can't share the new window as well and whenever you

[00:33:38] open that up we can just access certain parts and information but they can't mess with your show

[00:33:42] in general they can just add the things that you want them to add and then during the show they

[00:33:47] can see the details they've added in there so those are two ways of amazing now could i see

[00:33:52] the details that they added in there yes as long as you have access to that column yeah though i

[00:33:58] have access overall access to everything they got you so here's the weird law of unintended

[00:34:06] consequences it what because this is actually the way it should be right the graphics guys should see

[00:34:11] the graphics he doesn't need all the other crap for so long they've gotten the other crap that when

[00:34:16] they don't see it they're going to be like wait where's the rest of it that's true and what's

[00:34:21] nice about this is that you can make sure they see everything which i understand completely but

[00:34:27] that they can only edit what they actually should add it yeah yeah that's a specific column

[00:34:33] and as the developer in the team i just want to mention like the way we do this is it it

[00:34:40] encodes all this information in the link so you can literally create one link per person

[00:34:46] and this link cannot be tempered with like it's it's signed you know so you can just give

[00:34:51] these links out every link is a little bit different has different different permissions

[00:34:55] they don't they don't expire or you can make them expire if you want to

[00:34:59] there's even this quick access code you know if somebody is on an iphone on an ipad and they

[00:35:04] cannot get how do you get this link to me like oh you know whatsapp whatever don't have it so

[00:35:08] you just give them this like six digit number that they can type into their app and they get this

[00:35:13] stop this exact stuff that you just uh selected i told you didn't i just say i could trust

[00:35:19] them i could trust them

[00:35:28] oh yeah this is magical okay so let's okay i'm gonna ask the avert the leak okay i'm a planner and you

[00:35:35] know this black screen thing can i change my theme to white because i need to have it white even though

[00:35:40] i love black screen i only want a black right but can i do that because this just looks strange this

[00:35:45] you know that's all the av tech people that's a good question i i actually have a maybe answer to that

[00:35:53] if i can give a maybe answer um what i just what we just added on our outputs is the ability to set

[00:36:00] a background color for the output so you could in theory i don't know how well the text is going

[00:36:04] to show up i can try it now and see and i can improve it later but that's the good thing about

[00:36:09] us being on here um is that i can prove it later but if i change it to white i have some work to do

[00:36:15] there as you can see but but theoretically make it like a in theory i could you could definitely do

[00:36:21] that so if somebody really wants what i did this for is for a more like a chroma key green maybe so

[00:36:29] you could set it up to be green and then oh yeah easier on the as an example i yeah you can

[00:36:36] actually read the data too so if they want a different color then yeah sure there you go

[00:36:41] but but tess we're not we're not going to allow anyone to do that no no no no no no no no i only

[00:36:47] like black things personally but i just know you know people have a tendency to you know

[00:36:52] want that kind of stuff wait that's not true you like me well yeah that's true all right there

[00:36:58] was there was my job today there's a bit of a choke among that like the developers that

[00:37:04] the first thing everybody wants to add is the black mode white mode of their website

[00:37:08] but nobody really cares about that people just want to use the tool

[00:37:13] yeah exactly yeah that is i love it i i personally love that you started off with black

[00:37:18] because that's just the world that we we live in we like it that way and they need to conform to

[00:37:23] well could you imagine in techland if all the screens were white oh my god it would be like this

[00:37:28] big glowing orb in the back of the room and i think people use google sheets for this so much

[00:37:34] for this kind of run of show document and it's just it hurts it it it really does you know

[00:37:41] when the rest of the room is dark and you're sitting there with that bright light it's you

[00:37:44] know so so planners that's why the people at the tech table like everything dark

[00:37:48] let's go to the kaila eyes let's talk about version control for just one second and just

[00:37:54] you know in case someone's kind of thinking it from that perspective i've imported um

[00:38:01] my run of show version three if you will and um if i need to for some reason i don't know why anyone

[00:38:09] want would not work in here but let's just think that novice they're just starting out they're

[00:38:15] not quite sure so they've upload version three but then somebody out there is working on a four

[00:38:23] and they're like dark on it what the heck and it's long and it's cumbersome in excel or google

[00:38:30] sheets and it'll just be daunting to me to have to go in here and look at a sheet and change what

[00:38:37] it is and then i say well you know what i need to upload version four to make it easier myself and

[00:38:42] then custom out and then just say i did not tell you we're only working here how do i handle

[00:38:49] that or is there like a visit again just help me through that um so that you may have some good

[00:38:57] feature requests there first of all we haven't uh i don't think we've explored version control heavily

[00:39:03] yet one way i think we currently could work around that is we have these what we call the run

[00:39:09] down status and like i said i imported this one earlier so this one is set up as imported

[00:39:14] since it was imported um but we have these other ones draft awaiting data approved finalized rejected

[00:39:20] so in that case what i would do is just reject this one if it was v2 and then pull in v3 and

[00:39:26] consider it to be like approved oh i like that i actually like that better yeah yeah and you know

[00:39:34] you know again this is when this is when tech can't solve process problems yeah yeah right and if

[00:39:47] and we all have that one person that just goes off and does their own thing we right they you know

[00:39:52] but that's that's actually a process issue you know that's uh you know it's also a fear issue

[00:39:59] i would say yeah but you know but like you said that person comes in see even now the way that i would

[00:40:04] handle that is okay you've updated that you were told to use this guess what you have to go in here

[00:40:10] and you have to now make all the changes by hand exactly i went to no um and i and i was glad i

[00:40:15] want i asked it for i asked that question for several reasons and the third one you covered

[00:40:19] which is showing because i wanted you to talk about the imported because i love that i thought

[00:40:23] that was awesome so can you go back just one more second and i know we're probably

[00:40:27] running out of time soon but to the approved area how how is the awaiting data work again i don't want

[00:40:34] to assume anything no these are just um labels effectively so you in your team would decide

[00:40:42] sort of what awaiting data means to you okay okay we don't actually it's it's one of those things

[00:40:47] we've been thinking about actually from the start is how how much of the process that we

[00:40:53] want to get involved in versus just giving people nudges towards it so at this point it's just

[00:40:58] a little bit but i love it i think it's amazing and because it informs the user

[00:41:07] i would i would like to put this a little bit into into context um like we are two dudes

[00:41:12] and we have been working on this for what is it now six six months so you can imagine there's

[00:41:18] a bit of a room still you know to grow and we really are interested like if people use it and

[00:41:23] they give us feedback and tell us you know that's how we use it and we need this or this didn't

[00:41:27] right quite work out or we really need to we listen we listen and we take it serious and we

[00:41:32] try to build a good tool so uh you know fast forward two years you're gonna have much more

[00:41:37] to to look forward to well but this is actually one so this you guys get right what every other

[00:41:46] event tech company gets wrong and here's what you do right you have a person who's on the event side

[00:41:53] and someone who isn't didn't natively come from the industry right this is somebody who kind of fell

[00:41:58] into it and together you can make amazingly useful products because you have two totally

[00:42:04] different ways of thinking right where where john you can say well this is the way it's always

[00:42:08] been done and lucas that's when you go huh well it'd be much easier if you did it this way

[00:42:13] and then the light bulb goes off but then to your point you know to or to lucas what maybe you might

[00:42:20] say something and john will go that'll never fly because you have to do these things in this this

[00:42:24] order however it is most event tech companies don't have anyone on the planning side that that are

[00:42:32] there they're typically just tech folks that have created you know amazing things but planners

[00:42:38] don't use them or planners can't use them because it just doesn't fit in the way that things work and

[00:42:45] i and i think that's what makes you guys very successful so please don't change that um there

[00:42:52] there you go that was that was my whole thought on that

[00:42:56] i agree okay so guys um in in a nutshell um a couple of things um what what do you see

[00:43:06] coming down the pike for the future maybe that one thing that you think is necessary

[00:43:11] and then also what is your pricing model i will say something that's coming up soon um companion

[00:43:20] module official companion module something that we've always wanted to build from the start i mean i

[00:43:26] said that as if we've been doing this for years but yeah we wanted to make a proper module for

[00:43:31] companion which is coming soon ish um in order to take full control of the show i know from working

[00:43:38] with people and doing shows myself it's the first question people ask is like oh that's good is

[00:43:44] is there a companion module so we're really quite keen and excited to get that so john and for the

[00:43:49] planners out there let's go let's go come on well uh no for planners out there yeah companion

[00:43:56] now wait john is that did you develop companion no i get that a lot i my face is on the website

[00:44:01] right i made a video about it because he's a superstar basically i think i've done like one

[00:44:07] possible line of code of one point i've done nothing okay so but you're in there right

[00:44:13] but companion is an amazing piece of software that allows you to connect and i'll make this

[00:44:20] easy for planners to connect all of the stuff at the tech table together so that you can

[00:44:24] operate it by buttons on a nalgato stream deck which is a just a little touchpad it's like a hot keys

[00:44:32] and it is probably one of the most useful pieces of basically free software that has ever been created

[00:44:40] boom

[00:44:43] because you can find all kinds of stupid things you can connect you can connect the link i mean

[00:44:48] it's great for the tech table but you can connect like lights in your office

[00:44:55] but so anyway but that is companion in a nutshell yeah that's cool and uh pricing model

[00:45:04] how does it you know great is it gonna cost me an arm in the lake and i really afford but in my

[00:45:09] budget because it's really sour oh but we take livers you know kim said he was giving you

[00:45:21] is for me man all i have is a kidney

[00:45:28] sorry sorry go ahead go ahead um no we're keen we're keen to cover all as many business as we can

[00:45:35] that's that's the idea like it doesn't have to be a massive yearly bill that comes on your lap

[00:45:43] because i have been running my own production company for years as a solo person and i know that

[00:45:50] many of the other tools out there i wouldn't even look at the pricing never mind be able to

[00:45:54] afford it for shows so we're keen to cover as much as we can for people um so we have a

[00:46:01] event based price which is effectively for the next 10 days you get access to all of the features

[00:46:09] that we've talked about all the full pro paid features i want to put it um which is perfect

[00:46:15] for people to just want to use it for the next 10 days they have a big show once a year

[00:46:19] and they don't have to pay constantly for it and then we have monthly and yearly as well

[00:46:24] pricing options for those who definitely will use it for way more than you know a couple

[00:46:30] of shows a year um and then there's people who just want it for the next six months because

[00:46:36] they have a busy period and they have lots of clients to um to work for so i think

[00:46:41] with those three options we've kind of covered things nicely for small medium and hopefully

[00:46:47] large companies as well oh i appreciate that yeah and that was great that's simple i'd love

[00:46:52] the simplicity yeah and as a third party planner right you know you you've given me

[00:46:57] options right you know i can you know you know am i going to do the big yearly package no probably

[00:47:03] not because because we're pretty transparent with our clients so my clients can actually come in

[00:47:08] and do the one time you know or you know monthly if you're planning a couple of months out i i this

[00:47:14] is one of the things that when i when i actually did go through and i did look at the pricing

[00:47:17] you know it was one of those things where it was kind of like refreshing right it was like

[00:47:22] oh all right i know exactly what this is going to cost you're not like come on go ahead and

[00:47:27] feel it for me well and it's also not like there's one event tech company i'm working with right now that

[00:47:33] it's like they they're nickel in diming people to absolute death

[00:47:39] it's what you should do that way oh you want to add a hundred more speaker uploads that's another

[00:47:44] two thousand dollars it's like you're just storming it on a w s

[00:47:53] exactly well gentlemen i thank you so much um you know this is a tool i hope that

[00:48:01] that every planner at least takes a look at because no matter what type of event you do

[00:48:08] even if it's a single evening event a luncheon event you know all the way up to a multi-day

[00:48:12] conference um this is something that will actually make your life easier and it will

[00:48:17] and not only easier it'll actually make your job it'll make your production better absolutely

[00:48:24] and it does not and i would also speak from you know i'd love to do on-site and execution

[00:48:30] i mean think about use case for it if i have to go um on-site and work for a client and i

[00:48:36] don't have anything to do with the av side of things per se right i can still utilize it to

[00:48:43] guide my entire program right i can get people who are involved in it and they may not have to be

[00:48:50] just only the production company can be others as well so kind of think outside the box how the tool

[00:48:55] can solve some of the challenges and that the basic the bottom line about this is about

[00:49:01] productivity and communication communicating out to others what's going on and the nimbleness of

[00:49:08] moving your program forward so yeah any final words so lucas share some wisdom and then john i

[00:49:16] want you to share some wisdom as well remember we're the event tech pull up so we're really

[00:49:21] excited about you pulling up with that john you want to see uh what i was going to say is if you

[00:49:28] if you out there want to use the tool and and you try it out for a while and you think well

[00:49:34] it's good but it would be great if it had that one little thing keep in mind that we are just two

[00:49:39] people building this but we're building it fast and we're taking on feedback fast i just spoke

[00:49:45] with someone last week who said i will use it for my show it's just a shame it doesn't have this

[00:49:50] thing and we published that thing today for them to use on their show next week so we

[00:49:55] we are literally watching the inbox waiting for people to give us feedback and then adding those

[00:50:00] features as fast as we can if they make sense in the overall scheme so you know come to it find a

[00:50:07] feature that would be just perfect for it let us know and it's possible that we could have that in

[00:50:11] there um in a in a timely manner you won't have to wait potentially months or years for someone

[00:50:16] to reject of the feature idea and lucas yeah and like last week i talked to one of my customers

[00:50:24] from stage timer and i've been really working on this tool for three years now and i've been

[00:50:29] diligently really trying to keep it simple to use for the first time user as much as

[00:50:35] really versatile for the person that runs their 100s show you know and they i asked them

[00:50:42] what feature do you like if you had one feature request what would it be

[00:50:46] and the answer was you know we do have stuff on our list here but we are almost afraid to

[00:50:50] say it because your tool is so simple and so straightforward we just love to keep it that way

[00:50:56] and i found it such a beautiful confirmation because we both really strive to build simple

[00:51:01] approachable tools for everybody um yeah and i'm i'm pretty happy that like so far as john said

[00:51:08] you know approach us tell us tell us what you need and we are we are pretty flexible

[00:51:14] absolutely fantastic oh okay well gentlemen um i appreciate you i've said it

[00:51:20] throughout time and i would probably continue to say it in the future and you know just keep going

[00:51:27] you know keep going um so many have got we've gotten lost to really great simple tools to make our

[00:51:34] life easier and i know that we're not gonna you're not gonna actually get lost in the

[00:51:39] so thank you so much for being here on the ventec below Keith the test thanks for having us

[00:51:45] it was amazing yeah we lost thanks