Cue Lights and the Crew Board
3 min readDesktop App
Put each department's current and next cue, a countdown and STANDBY and GO cue lights on any tablet or phone backstage, with nothing to install.
What It Is
The crew board is one of the Show Companion's pages, in Theatre and Production. CueSync serves it from the show machine over the venue Wi-Fi, and any tablet, phone or spare laptop opens it in a browser. There is nothing to install, and nothing on the board can move the show clock, load a track or edit the show.
Each department — a station — gets a card: its current cue, its next cue with a live countdown (amber inside ten seconds), the show clock, and a virtual cue light.
Put a Tablet on the Show
- Open Settings → Companion and switch on Enable companion server.
- Under Network, pick the Wi-Fi the tablets are on. Use the backstage or house Wi-Fi, never the show-control network; the list marks the sensible choice recommended.
- Point the tablet's camera at the QR code on the Join card.
Every link carries an access code. For tablets that stay with the show, set a fixed access code, so a link pinned to the home screen still works after a restart. The Join card also has a station link for each department: the followspot tablet opens on the followspot's cues only. The connected-device list shows who is on, so a missing tablet is spotted before places.
Cue Lights
The light follows the show: STANDBY as a cue arms, and a green GO flash as it fires. The stage manager can also call STANDBY and GO by hand for any station from their own device. Like a cue-light box, a GO goes out by itself after about eight seconds, and a STANDBY stays lit until its GO is called or someone presses Clear. Each call shows who made it.
A call is a signal between people: the operator still presses GO in Run Mode.
When the Board Loses the Show
If the board stops hearing from the show machine, its countdown stops within about three seconds. After about twelve the whole board greys, hides its cue lights and shows SIGNAL STALE until updates return, so a frozen board never shows a countdown that is only the tablet guessing.
Notes, Sheets and Banners
- ＋ Leave a note sends a note on the current cue to the operator's review queue (Settings → Companion, Pending notes from the team). Only the operator applies it to the show.
- ⬇ Download sheet saves that station's cue sheet — print it to PDF from the tablet — and ⬇ CSV saves the same list for a spreadsheet. A cue cut from tonight's run is struck through on the sheet.
- Broadcast, in Settings → Companion, puts one banner on every device at once: HOLD — stand by, Places, please, or anything you type.
- ⛶ Board switches to a full-screen view for a green-room monitor.
Before the Show
A web page cannot keep a tablet's screen awake when it is opened from the show machine's network address. Set a dedicated cue-light tablet's Auto-Lock to Never (or use Guided Access), and check it by leaving the tablet alone for longer than its auto-lock time.
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