Event Timeline and Run Sheet Template
The run sheet is the document that actually carries an event. It is the difference between a planner answering forty questions on the day and a planner watching an event run itself. Build it once properly and you will use the same structure on every booking you ever take.
See the coursesEverything on this page is yours to copy and adapt. The courses cover the decisions behind it: what to charge, what to promise, and what to put in writing.
What yours needs to cover
- ✓ A bump-in schedule sequenced so suppliers do not arrive on top of each other
- ✓ The minute-by-minute running order for the event itself, with owners against every line
- ✓ Cue lines for the things that have to be triggered: speeches, music changes, service, the cake
- ✓ A supplier contact sheet on the same document, because a phone number in another file is a phone number nobody has
- ✓ A bump-out schedule, which is where deposits are lost and nobody plans for it
- ✓ A contingency column: what happens if it rains, if a supplier is late, if a speaker does not turn up
How to use it
- Start at the moment guests arrive and work outwards in both directions.
- Put a name against every line. A task with no owner is a task you are doing.
- Send it to every supplier a week out, and ask each of them to confirm their own lines.
- Print it. The one thing you can rely on at a venue is that the signal will be poor.
Two documents doing two different jobs
The planning timeline covers the months before the event. It is built backward from the date, and it holds every deadline that the date creates: when the venue contract must be signed, when each supplier has to be booked, when final numbers are due, when each payment falls. Its reader is mostly you and your client, and its job is to stop anything being left late.
The run sheet covers the day itself, from the first supplier arriving to the last van leaving. Its readers are the suppliers, the venue staff and anybody helping you. Its job is to let all of them do the right thing at the right time without asking you. Most planners start with the timeline and write the run sheet in the final fortnight, drawing on everything the timeline has already confirmed.
Building the run sheet line by line
Every line needs five things: a time, an action, an owner, a location and a note. Write the action as something a person does ("caterer begins canape service on the terrace"), not as a heading ("canapes"). Give each supplier a bump-in window, the entrance they use, where they unload and where they park, because a delivery arriving at the front door during a ceremony is a run sheet problem, not a supplier problem.
Cue lines deserve special care. A speech, a first dance, a product reveal or a lights change is triggered by somebody, and the run sheet should say who gives the cue and who receives it. "Planner signals MC" is a line that works on the day. "Speeches" is a line that leaves three people waiting for each other.
The contingency column and the handover test
For every line that depends on weather, travel or a single person, write the fallback and the decision point: who decides, and by what time. Deciding at 10 a.m. that drinks move indoors is a calm instruction. Deciding at 4:55 p.m. is a scramble in front of guests.
Then test the document. Hand it to somebody who has not been involved in the planning and ask them to talk you through the day. Every question they ask is a line that is missing. Unit 4 of the course is built around this test, because the run sheet that passes it is the one that lets you step away when something unexpected needs your attention.
A filled-in example
| 2:00 p.m. | AV supplier bumps in through loading dock B and sets the stage and screens in the main hall. Owner, AV lead |
|---|---|
| 3:30 p.m. | Caterer gets kitchen access and sets the bar. Owner, catering manager |
| 4:45 p.m. | Sound check and slide run-through with the MC and the CEO. Owner, planner |
| 5:30 p.m. | Doors open, registration desk live, drinks service begins. Owners, registration lead and bar manager |
| 6:15 p.m. | Cue. Planner signals the MC, lights dim, launch video plays. Owner, AV lead on the planner's signal |
| Wet weather | Terrace drinks move to the foyer. Decision by 12 noon, planner with the venue manager |
| 9:30 p.m. | Bump-out begins with AV first. Venue cleared by 11:00 p.m. as the venue contract requires |
Mistakes to avoid
- Writing times without owners. A line with no name against it defaults to you, and on the day you cannot be in two places. Put a person or a supplier against every line, including the small ones.
- Ending the run sheet at the last speech. Bump-out is where hired items go missing, venues charge overtime and damage gets argued about. Plan it with the same detail as bump-in.
- Sending it the day before. Suppliers need about a week to spot a clash with their own schedule. Send it early, ask each one to confirm their lines in writing, and resend it when anything changes.
- Keeping contacts in a separate file. The phone number you need at 6 p.m. has to be on the page you are holding. Put the supplier contact list on the run sheet itself.
Event Timeline and Run Sheet Template FAQs
What is the difference between a timeline and a run sheet?
A timeline usually means the planning schedule that runs over the months before an event. A run sheet is the minute-by-minute document for the day itself. You need both, and confusing them is how a planner arrives with a beautiful document that does not say when the caterer gets access.
How detailed should a run sheet be?
Detailed enough that somebody who has never met you could run the event from it. That is the test, and it is not hypothetical: the reason to write it that way is the day you are ill or stuck in traffic.
Should suppliers get the whole run sheet?
Yes, and it is worth being deliberate about that. A supplier who can see the whole day solves small problems without calling you, and the calls you do not receive on event day are the entire value of the document.
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