Exercises: Large-Scale and Multi-Day Production
Part A recall · Part B application · Part C field work · Part D critique · Part M mixed review · Part E extension.
Starred (★) problems have worked answers in appendices/answers-to-selected.md.
Part A — Recall and Comprehension
A.1 ★ State the supply-chain threshold. What changes about what you are scheduling?
A.2 Give the seven diagnostic conditions. Which is the commonest single trigger?
A.3 ★ Give the six rows of what changes above the line. Which is the important one, and why?
A.4 Name the five phases of a production schedule, and the phase nobody schedules.
A.5 What does the space column in a production schedule do?
A.6 ★ Explain the dependency map. Name three things it tells you that a list cannot.
A.7 Why is a schedule written from suppliers' preferences wrong? What happens by eleven on Tuesday?
A.8 ★ Define minimum call, turnaround, and the meal rule. What does minimum call imply about how you sequence work?
A.9 Give the crew ratio for unloading a 53-ft trailer with and without a dock. Why is the second the most under-estimated figure in the chapter?
A.10 What fraction of build time is strike, and what do people plan?
A.11 ★ Name six elements of crew welfare, and give the argument for it that is not moral.
A.12 Distinguish a marshalling plan from a delivery schedule. Name six things a marshalling plan contains.
A.13 ★ What question does a production manager ask about a yard that a planner does not?
A.14 Give the four utilities and the question nobody asks about each.
A.15 Why should AV be on its own leg? What is wrong with a backup generator without automatic transfer?
A.16 ★ Give the sanitation ratios for three event types, and state Chapter 29's rule that applies.
A.17 State the channel-discipline rule and the one rule about channel 1.
A.18 ★ Give the three site-plan rules. How wide is the emergency lane and whose overflow parking is it?
A.19 How is a production meeting run, and why by hour rather than by supplier?
A.20 ★ Name five categories of people you do not manage. What is the operating principle, and what does "no" mean?
A.21 Name the six things that break on day two, in order. What single fix addresses four of them?
A.22 What documents does a large build require? Which one matters most and is not on the list?
Part B — Application
B.1 ★ Take an event you know and run the threshold check. All seven diagnostics, honestly. Report how many it satisfies and what you would do differently.
B.2 Draw the dependency map for a build with: floor protection, staging, rigging, LED wall, audio, lighting, power distro, catering equipment, décor, and rehearsal. Identify the critical path and the choke point.
B.3 ★ Build a two-day production schedule for a 300-person gala in a hotel ballroom handed over at 20:00 the night before. Include the space column and mark the dark period.
B.4 A supplier asks to arrive at 07:00 on the build day. Write the three questions you ask before agreeing.
B.5 ★ 18 crew, call 08:00, meal rule five hours, penalty $18 per half-hour per person. The rig will finish at 14:15 if the meal is skipped. Compute the penalty, and write what you actually do.
B.6 Build the marshalling plan for six vehicles into a venue with one bay: two 53-ft trailers, two box vans, a florist's van, and a generator on a low-loader. Include an off-site holding point and the release protocol.
B.7 ★ Size the power for a 600-person outdoor event: stage AV 62 kW, catering 41 kW, site lighting 14 kW, offices and comms 6 kW. Apply a diversity factor and specify the set, then say what you put on a separate leg and why.
B.8 Specify sanitation for a 900-person, 8-hour outdoor event with alcohol. Units, accessible provision, hand-washing, and the servicing plan — including how the truck reaches them.
B.9 ★ Draw the site plan for an outdoor event with one road access. Two circulations, one-way service, emergency lane, waste footprint, and crew break area.
B.10 Write the channel plan and the five-minute radio briefing for a build with four contractors, catering, and security.
B.11 ★ Write the production meeting agenda and opening for −6 weeks on a three-day event. Then write what you say when two suppliers claim the same hour.
B.12 Write the overnight reset checklist for a two-day conference. Named crew, times, and the walk.
B.13 ★ A rigger refuses to hang a 400 kg element from a point you were told was rated. Write what you say and what you do, in order, in the first ten minutes.
B.14 Compute the strike for the B.3 schedule at 50% of build time. Then say what has to be true for the venue's handback deadline to be met.
B.15 ★ Take Chapter 26's production book and list every change needed to make it a production schedule. Be specific about what is added and what is unchanged.
Part C — Field and Practice
C.1 ★ Visit any venue and find out: dock height, dock width, turning circle, and whether a 53-ft trailer can leave. Report which of the four they had to go and check.
C.2 Get a real crew agreement or rate card from a labour supplier. Report minimum call, turnaround, meal rule, and overtime thresholds.
C.3 ★ Watch a load-in if you can get access. Time one truck's unload. Compare to §34.3's ratios.
C.4 Find a venue's exclusive-services list. Report what you may not do yourself and what it costs.
C.5 ★ Ask a production manager: "what do event planners get wrong on a build?" Record verbatim.
C.6 Find your jurisdiction's requirements for temporary structures and temporary electrical installations at events. Report the thresholds at which certification is required.
C.7 ★ Attend or reconstruct a production meeting. Count how many conflicts surfaced in the room versus afterwards.
Part D — Critique and Judgment
D.1 ★ §34.1 claims the threshold arrives at events of 200 people. Is the threshold really about size, or about something else? Propose a better diagnostic if you have one.
D.2 The chapter says the meal is a fixed point and the work moves around it. Build the case for pushing a meal once, in a genuine emergency, and say where the line is.
D.3 ★ The dark day is "worth more than an extra crew." Attack that, including from the client's point of view — they are paying for a day when nothing happens.
D.4 §34.8 says a rigger saying no is the system functioning. A planner could reasonably say that is a recipe for being obstructed by anybody who wants a quiet day. Answer it.
D.5 ★ The productive struggle sacrifices the speaker rehearsal, including for an executive who flew in. Argue that this is the wrong call and that the doors time should have moved further, or that décor should have gone. Then decide.
D.6 The chapter treats crew welfare as both moral and practical and leads with practical. Is leading with the practical argument a compromise worth making, or does it concede something?
D.7 ★ §34.9 says a multi-day event is an event plus a reset. What does the framing miss? Name at least one failure mode that is not on the list of six.
D.8 The chapter recommends printed documentation on the wall as the primary artefact. In an era where everybody has a phone, defend or attack that.
Part M — Mixed Review
M.1 ★ (Ch.13) What does the access question become here, and what question did Chapter 13 not ask?
M.2 (Ch.26) What transfers exactly from the production book, and what one thing is added?
M.3 ★ (Ch.18) Same physics, three new problems. Name all three and the governance change.
M.4 (Ch.25) Where is the cascade in a build, and what is different about float here?
M.5 ★ (Ch.27) Apply the sweep to a build. What is the route, and what are you looking for?
M.6 (Ch.28) What is category D on a large build? Name four.
M.7 ★ (Ch.29) Which two of the eleven friction points get much worse at 400 people, and what does §34.6 do about them?
M.8 (Ch.30) Strike is 40–60% of build. What does that do to Chapter 30's handback arithmetic?
M.9 (Ch.31) Which production decision saved $16,000 of AV at Northwind, and why was it not a negotiation?
M.10 ★ (Ch.33) What happens to all of this at distance? Name the two things that become impossible and the substitute for each.
Part E — Extension and Synthesis
E.1 ★ Build a complete production book for a real three-day event: dependency map, production schedule with space column, crew plan, marshalling plan, site plan, infrastructure spec, safety documentation register, and two overnight resets. Then have a production manager critique it.
E.2 Research a major event failure with a published investigation — a structural collapse, a crowd incident, a fire. Map the causes onto this chapter and Chapter 28. Report what neither covers.
E.3 ★ Write 800 words on the relationship between schedule pressure and safety at events. Use the meal-penalty example and the rigger example, and reach a position about what a planner's actual obligation is.
E.4 Interview somebody who works crew — not a manager, crew. Ask what a good client site feels like. Report three things that are not in §34.3.
E.5 ★ Design the induction: five minutes, delivered to every person who comes on site, covering exits, assembly, first aid, channels, and authority. Then deliver it to somebody and time it.
E.6 Compare event production practice with another discipline that schedules space and crews — film, construction, or theatre. Report three practices this chapter should adopt.
📐 Mini-Project
Take an event you have run or can research in detail and produce it as a production, not a plan.
- The threshold check, all seven
- The dependency map, drawn
- The production schedule, with a space column and a dark period
- The crew plan, with the rules honoured and strike at 50%
- The marshalling plan, every vehicle
- The site plan, two circulations
- The infrastructure spec — power, water, sanitation, comms
- The safety register, and the name of the person in charge of the site
- The overnight reset, if multi-day
Then walk the schedule forward, hour by hour, out loud, to somebody else.
Count the conflicts you find. You will find some, and finding them at a desk is the entire point of this chapter.