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Your first show in 5 minutes

Open a room, set a timer, put it on a stage screen and press Start.

1. Open a room

After you create a free account and sign in, you’ll see your rooms. A room is one stage or event space, with its own running order and its own screens. The Free plan includes 3 rooms.

New rooms show as Unnamed. Click the name to give the room one, such as “Main Hall”, then click Open.

The rooms dashboard, with three Unnamed rooms and the first room’s Open button highlighted.
Your rooms. Click Open to go to a room’s Controller.

2. Find your way around the Controller

The Controller is where you prepare and run the show. It has four parts you’ll use most:

The Controller, with four numbered areas: the rundown, the preview and Start button, stage messages, and the Outputs button.
The Controller.
  1. Rundown. Your running order. Each row is one segment of the show.
  2. Preview and transport. Shows exactly what the stage screen shows, with Start, Pause, and buttons to add or take off a minute.
  3. Stage messages. Silent notes for the speaker. See Stage messages.
  4. Outputs. Puts the timer on a screen.

3. Set up a timer

Click into a row to change it:

  • Title, such as “Opening & Welcome”.
  • Speaker, just below the title.
  • Duration, as minutes and seconds. Type 10:00 for ten minutes, or 1:30:00 for an hour and a half.
  • Type, just under the duration, such as Countdown or Count up. See Timers for every type.
A rundown row, with the title, speaker and duration boxes highlighted.
Click the title, speaker or duration to change them.

Every room starts with three 10-minute timers, Timer 1, Timer 2 and Timer 3, ready for you to change. The Free plan allows 3 timers per room, so change these rather than adding more, or delete one you don’t need.

4. Put the timer on a screen

Click Outputs at the top right, then Stage monitor. The stage screen opens in a new browser tab. Move that tab to the screen the speaker will see, such as a TV or projector, and press Fullscreen.

The Outputs menu open, with Stage monitor highlighted.
Outputs, then Stage monitor.
The stage monitor: the segment title and speaker at the top, a large 10:00 timer and a progress bar.
What the speaker sees.

For a phone, tablet or another computer, use a link or QR code instead. See Put the timer on a screen.

5. Start the timer

Press Start. The stage screen counts down straight away. You can also press the Space bar.

The transport buttons, with Start highlighted, and -1 min and +1 min below it.
Start and pause here, and add or take off a minute below.
  • The timer turns yellow with 2 minutes left and red with 30 seconds left. You can change these times in each timer’s settings.
  • Use +1 min or -1 min if a session runs long or short.
  • Press Pause to stop the clock, and Resume to carry on.

Next steps