A Checklist Before You Book Crew for a Live Broadcast

Before anyone is booked, write down what the broadcast is. A forty-minute news programme with two presenters and a handful of packages asks very different things of a crew than a live entertainment show with an audience, musical cues and several guests moving between sets. The first question is not how many people you need, but which jobs have to be done at the same moment during transmission.

List those jobs in the order they occur. Someone cuts the pictures, someone watches audio levels, someone talks to the presenters, someone plays in graphics and clips, and someone keeps an eye on the clock. In a small production one person may cover two of these, but only if the two never collide. Where they do collide, that is where a mistake will happen on air.

Be honest about the venue as well. A purpose-built studio with a working gallery needs support staff who can operate what is there. A hired room or a venue stage needs people who can also assess what is missing. Say which of these you have, because it changes who should be on the booking.

• Name every task that happens during transmission
• Mark any two tasks that overlap in time
• State whether the gallery already exists or must be built
• Note the running time and any live inserts

Crew are only as useful as their familiarity with the equipment in front of them. A vision mixer from one maker behaves differently from another, and an intercom system with unfamiliar routing can cost a gallery team the first half hour of rehearsal. When you speak to a supplier, give them the make and model of the mixer, the intercom, the replay or playout system and the graphics source.

If the answer from their side is a general reassurance rather than a specific description of what they have used, press for detail. It is perfectly reasonable to ask which of the listed systems they have run on a live show, and which would be new to them. New is not disqualifying, but it should be known in advance so that time is set aside to learn it.

The same applies in reverse. If your own staff will operate part of the system, agree who owns each position. A gallery with two people who both believe the other is watching the return feed is a gallery waiting for a quiet failure.

• Give equipment makes and models in writing
• Ask which systems the crew have run live before
• Agree who owns each gallery position
• Allow learning time for anything unfamiliar

When costs are being trimmed, rehearsal is usually the first thing to shrink. It is also the thing that most often separates a calm transmission from a tense one. A rehearsal is where a camera shot turns out to be blocked by a set piece, where a presenter's microphone is found to clip against a jacket, and where the cue between two segments is discovered to be ambiguous.

Decide how much of the programme needs to be run through in full, and how much can be checked in sections. A format that repeats each week may need a lighter rehearsal than a one-off, but the first edition of anything deserves a complete run with every source live, including the ones that appear for only a minute.

Ask also whether the crew will be present for that rehearsal or only for transmission. A team that meets the studio for the first time on the day has no margin. Where possible, the same people should be in the gallery for both, so that what was fixed on Tuesday is still fixed on Thursday.

• Run the first edition of any show in full
• Include short or rare sources in the run-through
• Keep the same crew from rehearsal to transmission

Every live broadcast eventually loses something: a camera feed, a microphone, a clip that will not play. What matters is whether anyone has decided in advance what the response is. Ask your crew how they would handle the loss of the main camera, and listen for a specific answer rather than a promise that it will not happen.

Look at the backup paths. Is there a second route for programme audio? Can the gallery cut to a wider shot from another camera without a visible lurch? Is there a holding slide or a pre-recorded fallback that can be played within seconds? None of this needs to be elaborate, but all of it needs to be written on the run sheet and understood by whoever is sitting at the mixer.

Agree who makes the call. During a fault, five people offering suggestions is slower than one person deciding. Name that person before rehearsal, and make sure the presenters know the signal they will be given if the pictures have to change plan.

• Write the response to each likely failure on the run sheet
• Check that audio has a second route
• Name the one person who decides during a fault
• Prepare a holding slide or fallback clip

Clear talkback is easy to overlook until it is missing. Confirm that the director, the camera operators, the floor manager and the sound position can all hear each other, and that there is a way to speak to a presenter without it reaching the audience. Test it before anyone is in make-up, not after.

Then look at practical access. Can the crew get equipment into the building and up to the gallery without carrying it through a public area? Is there power where it is needed, and is it on a circuit that will not be shared with a kettle? Are the crew given somewhere to eat and rest during a long day, so that fatigue does not creep into the final hour?

Finally, confirm timings in writing: load-in, line-up, rehearsal, breaks, transmission and derig. A written timetable that everyone has seen removes a surprising number of small disagreements, and it leaves the crew free to concentrate on the pictures rather than the clock.

• Test talkback to every position early
• Confirm load-in route and power supply
• Provide rest and food for long days
• Share one written timetable with everyone