The most common advice a team can give a client is also the least technical: start talking sooner.

principle — attributed to Ben Erwin

Erwin's operations teams report the same recommendation more than any other, and it has nothing to do with equipment or staging. It is to begin the conversation about what an event is actually trying to accomplish long before the budget and the run of show are locked. He treats rehearsal the same way, as a forcing function that surfaces unresolved questions about purpose rather than a line item billed by the hour. Most of what looks like an execution failure on the day traces back to a conversation that happened too late to change anything. Timing the conversation is itself the strategy.

For teams that treat planning conversations as a formality to clear before the real production work starts.

planning, rehearsal, clarity, timing