Facility/Rehearsal Room Assignments

[lighttechie5948]

Hi guys,

I was wondering what software/system you use to manage assignments of facilities/rehearsal spaces to different productions. At my theater, we can have up to 4 productions rehearsing at the same time, along with classes, workshops, auditions, & meetings. We have things going on inside the theater, rehearsal studio, lobby, smaller lobby, back of the theater, and offices.

What's the best way to manage who gets what space. We want something where the stage manager of each show can go in and enter their rehearsal and which room they'd like and then the producer can approve it. Or, have it where each production could be assigned a priority rating and the one with the top priority (closest opening date) would get first priority in scheduling, but if they try to book more than one space at one given time it would have to be approved my management.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[BrockTucker]

We simply use google calendar. Each room has a different calendar/color. Directors/Stage managers give me a requested rehearsal schedule at the beginning of their rehearsal process including what specific needs (dance, piano, etc) each rehearsal has and I assign them space.

It's a free solution that works well for our two stages and 6 dance studio/rehearsal/lobby spaces.

edit: forgot to mention that it allows me to give read only access to anyone with a Google account. So anyone involved in a production can see the schedule in real-time without being able to muck about with it.

 

[drummerboi316]

this is what we use at my school.

Scheduling Software | Meeting Room Manager

it's called meeting room manager. from my limited exposure to it, i think it works very well. I don't know too much about it because only professional staff have access, and I am a student. But the faculty says it is a good program.

 

[Chris15]

There is an open source system known as Meeting Room Booking System that I can't personally attest to but am seriously considering implementing in an upcoming project.

 

[urban79]

Does anyone have any more recent suggestions or additional suggestions for a facilities management software? I am trying to replace an extremely outdated paper system that is clunky and not environmentally conscious (and also very time-consuming). We definitely need the ability to have different people approve requests, based on the area requested.

Thanks!
Chris

 

[Amiers]

Email and a google spreadsheet is still relevant even in this day and age.

For us as a rental house we have a 3 tier spreadsheet that breaks down in talks estimate and confirmed.

So someone gets in touch with a client and there is talks it goes in talks section, further taking and quotes goto estimate and when client makes a down payment then it drops to confirmed.

So you could have a prolly a 2 tiered section for requested and approved since there is no sale involved and run it like that.



Hard to show it from my phone but you can get the gist from the way it’s laid out.

Across the top that you can’t see is the days of every month. This is this months schedule.

 

[DrewE]

It's aimed at churches (and the same company offers many other administrative modules that may not be quite so useful for theater), but I think it would work very nicely for resource management for a performing arts venue as well. I've no affiliation beyond having used other parts of the suite at my church...and the bits I've used have worked very well and smoothly.

https://planning.center/resources

 

[What Rigger?]

The Calendar function in Outlook still gets me through a lot, what with the Meeting scheduler and all.

 

[Amiers]

The Calendar function in Outlook still gets me through a lot, what with the Meeting scheduler and all.

When I ran Dancing Horses I had a calendar program that synced with my google so I could delegate work to certain employees when I wasn’t there. I would spend an hour or so a week planning out the next week. Google calendar now a days does what my program did so that is also another good avenue to go if you don’t like the spreadsheets idea.