On this page
Offsets run from the door and from the terminal hour. No terminal hour is set for this address.
- Six cues
- One duty manager
- Offsets, not clock times
- Sheet signed at close
Running order
Six cues, five jobsand who calls each one
A cue with nobody attached to it does not get called. This page sets out the five jobs on a night, the cue sheet itself, and what happens when a cue has to move.
01JobsFive of them, named before the door
A running order is not a timetable. It is a list of cues with a name against each one, and the names come first, because a cue with nobody attached to it does not get called. Five jobs cover a night.
- Duty manager
- Holds the sheet, calls every cue, signs the night off. One per night, named before the door opens.
- Head door
- Runs the count and the refusal book, holds the door brief, calls one in, one out.
- Bar lead
- Runs service and the till readings, and confirms last orders back to the duty manager.
- Desk
- Lighting and sound. Runs the rig states and the stepped changes at cue 05.
- Glass
- Continuous collection, and the sweep that runs ahead of the crowd at cue 05.
On a quiet night one person can hold two of these jobs, with one exception: never the duty manager and the head door together. The first calls the cue that the second has to stand at a threshold and defend.
02SheetOffsets from door and terminal
Positions on the sheet are offsets in minutes from the door and from the terminal hour, not clock times. That is partly good practice — a sheet written in offsets survives a change of hours — and partly accuracy: clock times belong to a licence, and no terminal hour has been set for this address.
| Cue | Position | Called by | Written down |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Door | door | Duty manager | Count zeroed, book opened, brief given |
| 02 Warm | door | Duty manager | Room set signed off, table plan photographed |
| 03 Peak | door +60 to terminal −60 | Desk, confirmed by door | Peak count and the time it was reached |
| 04 Last | terminal | Duty manager | Time the cue was actually called, till readings |
| 05 Lights | terminal to terminal +20 | Desk | Level steps, and when the rig reached walk-out |
| 06 Close | terminal +50 | Duty manager | Sweep sign-offs, logs reconciled, keys and alarm |
03CallingOnce, aloud, and acknowledged
A cue is called once, out loud, to a named person, and acknowledged back. “Last orders, bar and booth” gets “bar, yes” and “booth, yes” in return. Nothing is called by gesture across a dark room, because a gesture cannot be acknowledged and cannot afterwards be written down.
The sheet is printed for the night and kept with that night’s paperwork rather than reused. A sheet carrying last week’s initials is a sheet nobody read.
04HandoverFour statements and two signatures
If the duty manager changes during a night, the handover happens with the sheet in hand and takes the form of four statements: what the count is now; which cues have been called; what is still open in the incident book; and what is being watched on the floor. Both sign the sheet at the point of handover, with the time. A handover nobody signed is a gap in the only document that says who was responsible.
05MovingWritten before it is called
Cues move. A late support, a queue that has not cleared, a spill that needs the floor dry before the lights come up — any of those moves a cue, and the rule is the same every time. The duty manager moves it, says so, and writes the new position on the sheet with their initials.
- Cue 04 never moves later. It is a clock event, not a judgement.
- Cue 05 may come forward but not push past cue 06.
- Cue 06 is not called until every sweep has been signed.
- A moved cue is written down before it is called, not afterwards.
The last cue is the one that does not bend, and the reason is simple: it is the only cue on the sheet that somebody standing outside the building can check for themselves.