A client once asked me to skip the dry run. "We have done this event three years in a row. The team knows the cues. Let's save the day." I said no. Two hours later they agreed. Eight hours before doors, we caught a dead XLR on the primary lavalier mic for the keynote. A silent dry run catches it every time.
What a dry run actually is
Not a rehearsal of the programme. A full technical run of the show: lights on, sound hot, slides loaded, cues called out, speakers replaced with stand-ins, floor director on headset, runners in position. Twelve hours before doors, no audience, no coffee breaks. Ninety minutes, start to finish.
The five things we catch, almost every time
- One audio channel that is wired but not patched. The mixing desk hears silence, the room hears hum.
- A slide deck with one animation that breaks on the venue's projector firmware.
- A lighting cue fired one second too late, making the host walk into a shadow.
- A door that was supposed to be locked at 9:02 and is not on the venue's master list.
- A music bed that is 15 seconds shorter than the choreography it is supposed to cover.
Why stand-ins work better than real speakers
Real speakers rehearse themselves, not the show. They skim, they paraphrase, they half-deliver. A stand-in reads every word at pace, which is what the production crew needs to hear. The speaker can still do a private voice check separately. The full-show dry run is about the room, not the person.
The one hour it saves on the day
A dry run usually takes ninety minutes. On event day, it saves you at least that much in unsolicited chaos. The math is simple.
Non-negotiable, even on tight briefs
We have done fourteen-day sprints. The dry run still happens. We pull it in to forty-five minutes if we must. We never skip it. It is the single cheapest insurance a flagship event can buy.
