The lease is signed. The room is empty.
You just signed the lease. The landlord handed you the keys, a tape measure and a pad of graph paper, and reminded you that opening night is closer than it looks. Right now the room is an empty box. Soon it will be a place guests can find, walk through, see the stage from and spend money in.
I am Dani, your venue designer. You will draw the room to scale, place every stop on a guest's night from the sidewalk to the exit, and decide what each stop sells. Then you will send a crowd through it and watch where the line backs up and where the money leaks out.
Dani · your venue designer
Later a touring production manager will walk your room and tell you three things they dislike about it, and you will fix them. There are no right answers here, only trade-offs you can explain. Your whole team can work on the same room at once, each on their own phone or laptop.
Seven missions, one night
- Sign the leaseName the venue, set its size and pick the building.
- Place the nine stopsLay out a guest's path from the sidewalk to the exit.
- Every stop is a saleDecide what each stop sells, then run the night.
- Can they see?Check the sightlines from every corner of the floor.
- What the band seesLoad-in, green room, storage and the sound desk.
- Three objectionsThe touring production manager hands you three problems to fix.
- Signature momentName the one thing a guest will tell a friend about.
This is not a right-or-wrong exercise. It gives you realistic reference points and shows you the trade-offs, so the floor plan in your pitch answers the patron, the band and the P&L at once, and so you can say where every number came from.