Quiz: Large-Scale and Multi-Day Production
21 items: 12 multiple choice · 5 true/false · 3 short answer · 1 applied scenario with rubric.
Answers in <details>. Attempt each before opening.
Part 1 — Multiple Choice (12)
Q1. An event becomes a supply chain the moment:
(a) It exceeds 500 guests (b) Two crews need the same space at different times and neither can be moved (c) It runs for more than one day (d) A union is involved
Answer
**(b).** Below that line you schedule tasks; **above it you schedule space, access, and people, and the tasks arrange themselves around what the space will allow.** A 250-guest marquee wedding routinely satisfies four of the seven diagnostics.Q2. The commonest single trigger among the diagnostics:
(a) Load-in exceeding one working day (b) More than three suppliers needing the same access point (c) Overnight occupation (d) Hiring labour rather than booking suppliers
Answer
**(b).** **One dock, three deliveries, and nobody knowing about the others** — which is exactly the chapter's opening.Q3. The most important thing that changes above the line:
(a) The budget rises (b) You talk to production managers instead of salespeople (c) The failure mode — something cannot happen at all, and you find out on site (d) The documentation gets longer
Answer
**(c).** **Below the line almost everything is recoverable with money or float. Above it, a load-in that does not fit does not fit**, and no amount of anything on the day changes a room with two crews in it and space for one.Q4. The phase nobody schedules:
(a) Tech and rehearsal (b) Load-out (c) The dark day (d) The site induction
Answer
**(c).** A day inside the build with nothing on it. **On a three-day build it is worth more than an extra crew — and it is the first thing a client asks you to remove.**Q5. In the dependency map, the element that is not on the critical path:
(a) Power distro (b) Staging (c) Dressing and décor (d) Focus and programme
Answer
**(c).** **Which is why décor — the element everybody thinks about first and clients most want to protect — is the one that can move.** **The conversation about what gives when a build runs late is much easier if the drawing exists.**Q6. A crew booked for ninety minutes typically costs:
(a) Ninety minutes (b) Two hours (c) Four hours (d) A full day
Answer
**(c)** — minimum call. **Which means batching work beats shortening it**, and four separate one-hour visits from the same supplier cost sixteen hours.Q7. Unloading a 53-ft trailer without a dock, on a tail-lift, takes roughly:
(a) The same as with a dock (b) 90 minutes (c) 2–4 hours (d) A full shift
Answer
**(c)**, against 45–90 minutes at a dock — **the single most under-estimated figure in the chapter.** And the money is the smaller problem: **the extra hours land on the critical path.**Q8. Strike is typically what fraction of build time?
(a) 10–20% (b) 25% (c) 40–60% (d) 100%
Answer
**(c)** — **and everybody plans 25%.**Q9. A marshalling plan differs from a delivery schedule because it schedules:
(a) Deliveries by supplier (b) Vehicles — objects that occupy space and cannot be put down (c) Crew calls (d) The order of the build
Answer
**(b).** Every vehicle listed with size, contents, driver's mobile; a bay window with a real duration; **an off-site holding point**; one named person who releases them; **and an answer to *how does it get out?***Q10. AV should be on its own electrical leg because:
(a) It draws more current than anything else (b) A kitchen's compressors cause voltage sags that show up as a flickering screen (c) It is a licensing requirement (d) It simplifies the distro
Answer
**(b).** A wedding's PA tolerated it; **an LED wall in front of 400 people does not.** And a backup generator without automatic transfer is **eleven minutes of darkness.**Q11. The three site-plan rules:
(a) Wide roads, good signage, clear parking (b) Two circulations that do not cross · a one-way service road · a 4-metre emergency lane kept clear (c) Separate entrances, a marked crew area, and a waste compound (d) Vehicles out by doors, guests in by the front
Answer
**(b).** Not "rarely cross" — **do not cross.** Every crossing point is a place where a guest and a forklift are in the same space, **and it will happen at the worst moment.**Q12. A production meeting walks the schedule forward by hour rather than by supplier because:
(a) It is faster (b) Suppliers prefer it (c) It is the only format in which two suppliers discover they have both been promised the dock at seven (d) It matches the run sheet
Answer
**(c).** **It puts them in the same row.** And the rule that goes with it: **every conflict is surfaced in the room**, because the third party needs to hear it.Part 2 — True or False (5)
Q13. If a rig is running late, pushing the crew meal by ninety minutes is a reasonable trade.
Answer
**False, twice over.** **The penalty in the worked example was $1,080 for ninety minutes of one crew's work** — and the second cost is that 24 people learned this planner will push their meal, **which makes every subsequent negotiation on that site harder.** **The meal is a fixed point and the work moves around it: the meal is an obligation and the rig is a preference.**Q14. Asking each supplier when they would like to arrive produces a workable build schedule.
Answer
**False.** **Every one of them says early**, and the result is five crews in a room where two can work. **The dependency map determines the order and the walked-forward meeting enforces it** — a supplier who sees their own row can tell you it is wrong; one who was asked what they want has no way of knowing.Q15. A rigger who refuses to hang something is obstructing the event.
Answer
**False.** **A licensed trade with legal responsibility for what hangs over people's heads, saying no, is the system functioning.** **The correct response is to ask what would make it possible, not to escalate.** You do not direct these people — **you sequence them.**Q16. "Everybody is responsible for safety" is an adequate arrangement on a large site.
Answer
**False.** With eleven contractors and ninety people it means **nobody stops anything**, because stopping work costs money and nobody will do it on somebody else's judgment. **One named person, known to everybody, whose decision stops work** — assigned in advance, out loud, at the induction.Q17. A multi-day event is essentially the same event repeated.
Answer
**False.** **It is an event plus a reset, and the reset is unscheduled.** Day two is run by people who have been on site fourteen hours, in a used room, **with consumables that have been consumed and a schedule that assumed neither.** The single fix for four of the six failure modes is **a staffed, named overnight reset run by people who did not work the day.**Part 3 — Short Answer (3)
Q18. Explain the dependency map: what it is, how you build it, and three things it reveals.
Answer
**List every element; for each ask *what must be finished before this can start?*; then draw it.** Forty minutes. **Three things a list cannot tell you.** **The critical path** — room handover → floor → staging → rig → AV → focus → sound check → rehearsal → doors, nine sequential steps and every one somebody else's crew. **The choke point** — power distro serves two branches, so it must be early and exclusive, **and it is routinely scheduled as though it were parallel.** **And what is *not* on the path** — dressing and décor, which is why they can move, and which makes the "what gives?" conversation much easier.Q19. Give the crew rules and explain what each does to a schedule.
Answer
**Minimum call** — typically four hours, so a ninety-minute job costs four; **batch work rather than shortening it.** **Turnaround** — 8–10 hours between calls; **it caps how late a crew can wrap if they call early tomorrow**, and it produced the binding constraint in the productive struggle. **The meal rule** — a break within about five hours from call, **with a penalty that escalates per half-hour per person**; the meal is a fixed point. **Overtime** at 1.5× then 2× after 8–10 hours, **and double-time days.** **All four are triggered by the schedule**, which is why the terms must be in writing before the schedule is built.Q20. What breaks on day two, and what fixes most of it?
Answer
**Consumables** — batteries, gaffer, water, coffee, cable ties; day one uses a day's worth and nobody ordered three days'. **The reset** — 90–180 minutes, on no schedule. **People** — turnaround; a crew that wrapped at 23:00 cannot call at 06:00. **Rubbish**, which has a real and growing footprint. **Information** — day two's changes must reach people who missed day one's briefing. **And the planner**, whose attention is a three-day resource. **One fix addresses four of the six: a scheduled, staffed, named overnight reset with a checklist, run by people who did not work the day** — clear, re-set, restock from a stores list, reset and *test* AV, waste out, **and one person walking the room with the day-2 schedule in hand.**Part 4 — Applied Scenario (1)
Q21. A three-day outdoor festival-format corporate event. 1,200 attendees. One access road, no dock. Site handover Monday 08:00; doors Thursday 10:00; site must be clear Sunday 18:00. Seven suppliers, including a 24 m × 40 m structure, a stage, and full catering. Two 53-ft trailers, four box vans, a low-loader with a 250 kVA generator, and daily catering deliveries.
Produce: the threshold check · the dependency map's critical path · the marshalling plan's structure · the infrastructure spec headline numbers · the site plan's three rules applied · and the strike arithmetic against the Sunday deadline.