I've stood in a lot of empty rooms at seven in the morning. The truss still in the truck, the stage a pile of deck, half the rough work not even started — and there, off to the side with their coffee, the three most expensive people on the call: the audio, lighting, and video ops. Waiting. For hours. I never understood it. On some shows the answer to all that waiting is to hand those same people a box and put them on load-in — so by the time the room is finally ready for them, the specialists you're paying the most are already tired. And tired people make mistakes. I've watched a careless 7am cost a clean 8pm more times than I can count. Here's what thirty years of running crews taught me: a crew isn't just a crew. You don't bring a system engineer in three hours early to carry road cases. You bring them when the room is ready for a system engineer. And the planning that isn't really planning hurts just as much. The PA goes up, the mix position gets set, and it starts moving immediately, because nobody thought it through on paper. So it's "move it all again." And if the cable's already run, you're not adjusting a position — you're untangling a mess. Most of it traces back to one missing thing: a real briefing, every department head in the same room, before a single case rolls. Not five side-conversations. One plan everyone shares. Let me tell you what's possible when you get this right. Years ago in Turkey, my crew — four people, two on audio, two on lighting — loaded in, set up, and soundchecked a 44-channel show from a cold truck in forty-five minutes. Forty-five. Same gear other crews fought with for five hours. The difference was never talent. It was sequence, motivation, and a plan we all shared. (How I motivated those young guys is a story for another day — let's just say I knew what made them move.)
None of this is about working harder. It's about working in the right order. What's the longest you've ever stood around at call time, waiting for a room that wasn't ready?
THE
FIX
·
METHODOLOGY
A Better Load-In, Phase by Phase Part 02 was the complaint. This is the cure — the order I run a load-in, where nobody waits, nobody carries what they shouldn't, and every position is powered, labeled, and ready before the specialists ever walk in.
1
Organized Staging The transport team brings every case in and stages it by zone — audio, lighting, LED / video each delivered and set in its own area, not dumped in a pile. The room is ready for the specialists before they arrive.
2
Rigging & Main Power
3
Distributed, Labeled Power
Rigging and main electrical go in first. The structure and the primary power feed are set before anything hangs or plugs in.
Power reaches every position that needs it — audio, video (LED / projector), lighting — and the whole FOH / control area. Each strip is placed with care, with enough capacity and outlets, and labeled with its breaker. Truss-level power for audio, lighting and video is ready and waiting.
4
Stage & Screens
5
Lighting & Video In
Stage construction and LED screens go up while electrical work continues alongside them.
Only the rough construction crew has worked the room so far. Now the lighting and video teams come in to build their systems.
6
Speakers & Operators — in Parallel The speaker team hangs or places the PA, and at the same time each operator builds their own position. Everyone arrives to a powered, organized, ready room — and works side by side, not on top of each other.
Get the order right, and everyone builds at once — calm, fast, and clean.