Show day terms

Tech rehearsal

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A tech rehearsal integrates the technical elements (lights, sound, video, scenery, automation) with performers, working through the show cue by cue. Dry tech runs without performers; the cue-to-cue is its most compressed form.

Dress rehearsal

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A dress rehearsal is a full run under show conditions: costumes, full technical execution, no stopping unless something breaks. Corporate shows use the term for the complete speaker run-through the day before.

Places

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Places is the stage manager’s call for performers to take their opening positions; the last call in the countdown that begins at half hour. "Places, please" means the show starts now.

Half hour

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The half-hour call marks thirty minutes to curtain, the traditional point performers must be in the building and signing in. The countdown proceeds through fifteen, five, and places.

Standby / Go

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The two-part cue call: "standby cue 47" warns the operator to be ready; "cue 47 go" executes it. Operators respond to standbys ("standing by") and act only on the word go, which is why nobody says "go" casually on headset.

Hold

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A hold stops the rehearsal or show sequence immediately, typically for safety ("hold, hold, hold" on headset). Work resumes only when the caller releases it. In rehearsal it simply pauses; during a show it is an emergency word.

Preset

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The preset is the configured state of the stage before the show or a scene: props placed, instruments tuned and set, opening looks in lights and video. "Preset the deck" is the instruction to build it.

Walk-in

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The walk-in is the audience-entering state: walk-in music, lighting look, and screen content that run from doors until the show begins. It is a designed cue state, not an accident of whatever was up.

Hard out

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A hard out is a non-negotiable end time: the venue curfew, the union call flip, the moment the ballroom becomes someone else’s wedding. Backward timing from the hard out determines everything upstream.

Curfew

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Curfew is the legally or contractually mandated time amplified sound or the event itself must end, common at outdoor venues. Blowing curfew triggers fines measured per minute, which is why encores get cut mid-set.

Turnaround

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Turnaround is the rest period between one day’s wrap and the next day’s call, governed by union rules or plain human limits. Short turnarounds trigger penalties or late starts; schedulers count them before publishing calls.

Meal penalty

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A meal penalty is the payment owed when crew work through a contractually required meal break. It exists to make skipping meals expensive rather than convenient, and it works.

Going dark

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A venue or production goes dark when nothing is running: no show, house closed. Related to the dark day but broader; a production that closes early "goes dark" indefinitely.

Strike call

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The strike call is the crew call for the load-out, often posted with the note that the out continues until the trucks are packed, not until a clock time. Fresh hands at strike call are worth double.

Part of the eventools.io Show Dictionary, a free glossary of live event production terminology.