Be Sure to Prepare Staff and Tech Crew to Help

Wayfinding: Spotlights > Preshow Set-Up > Be Sure to Prepare Staff and Tech Crew to Help

Depending on how technically intensive and interactive your production is, you might need a house manager, stage manager, technical manager, or other similar person to offer troubleshooting assistance during the show. artistic director Elliot Hughes of Hidden Track Theatre regarding their best online theatre practices, and Hughes said: ‘We’ll have someone on hand in the online Zoom to help out with technical questions, and if worse comes to worst, the full recording of the show will be available to all participants shortly after the show has finished’. Having this support on hand, noticeable through video, audio, or text in Zoom, ensures the audience can settle into the show.

During OnBoardXR 6: it’s pronounced ‘gybe’, for example, Clemence Debaig worked as the primary stage manager/technical director for the cast, crew, and audience. There were channels on the group’s Discord server named ‘#box-office’ and ‘#technicalsupport-reporting’ so audience members could get help using their ticket links to get into the Mozilla Hubs world, troubleshoot any hardware or software issues getting into the virtual world, and figure out other rules around onboarding themselves. Inside the Mozilla Hubs theatre space, Brendan Bradley and Michael Morran verbally greeted guests and explained the overall setup to use microphones, move around the space, and interact with the performances. This allowed them to check whether audience members’ devices were working and determine if anyone needed onboarding help. OBXR6 had, over a few festival runs, determined the ‘pain points’ for their audiences and set up specific trajectories they could follow for support at different stages. Two performers and one technical director/stage manager were aware of these potential issues. You will find it useful to consider what potential failure points appear throughout your rehearsal process, or in previous online or digital shows, and map out how you can offer preshow support to your audience. See Spotlight-Audience Onboarding for more suggestions on this support; that said, it seems most helpful to incorporate this support into the preshow (as well as the email with ticket information), so the audience knows that it is there for them.