The event production process is one of those jobs that almost nobody ever sees in its entirety. I have drawn it as a transit network, with every production role running as its own line and every milestone sitting on the sheet as a station, from the first client brief through to the de-rig.
This is the one map in my catalogue where the research was simply turning up to work for twenty years. Every other print I make comes from archives, liner notes, and session credits. This one came out of two decades of standing at the back of rehearsal rooms.
Alongside the maps, I still design live events, working freelance on 3D show design for conferences, exhibitions and experiential projects. So this print is essentially my own job, analysed.
Why the event production process needs a network, not a timeline
Every schedule I have ever been handed is a straight line. Brief, design, build, show, out. That is not wrong, but it is not what the job feels like, nor is it where things go right or wrong.
On a live job, you only ever see your own line. The producer sees one route through it. The designer sees another. The AV lead sees a third. Almost nobody in the room sees the whole network at once, which is exactly why the same misunderstandings recur on every project.
A tube map is built for that problem. It throws away distance and keeps connections, which means it can show you who is in the room with whom, at which point, and nothing else. That is the actual subject of this print: not the order of events, but the crossings.
The lines are roles, and the stations are milestones
Producer, director, designer, AV lead, show caller and runner each take their own route through the job, among other roles on the sheet. The interest is not where a line runs alone. It is where two of them share a station.
The stations are the milestones anyone who has done this will recognise: first client brief, creative kick-off, design development, venue recce, build, rehearsal, show days, and de-rig.
| Station | What is actually decided here |
|---|---|
| First client brief | The budget and the ambition, usually before anyone technical is in the room |
| Creative kick-off | The busiest crossing on the whole map |
| Design development | Where the show is genuinely made, and where the lines run closest together |
| Venue recce | Where the design meets the building, and one of them gives way |
| Build | Lines that have never met suddenly share a floor |
| Rehearsal | The last point at which anything can still change cheaply |
| Show days | Execution, not decision-making |
| De-rig | Where most of the lines end, quietly and at three in the morning |
The lines converge hardest long before anyone gets to the venue
This is the thing the map showed me that I had felt for years without being able to point at it. Drawn out, the lines cluster around the creative kick-off and design development, and by the time you reach the show days, most of the decisions have already been made.
The show is the visible part. It is also, structurally, the part where the fewest choices remain open. Everything that determines whether it works happened weeks earlier, in rooms with far fewer people.
That has a practical reading. If you want to change the outcome of a job, the leverage is at the left-hand end of the sheet. Adding people and attention at the right-hand end is expensive and rarely changes much, something every producer knows and almost no client budget reflects.
Why a diagram argues better than a document
I have watched people try to explain this job with process documents, RACI charts and thirty-slide decks, and I have written a few of them myself. They describe the sequence accurately and communicate almost nothing about how the work feels.
A network diagram does something different. Put six coloured lines on one sheet and a person immediately looks for their own, traces it, and then notices who they run alongside. That is a different mental act to reading a list, and it is why the London Underground diagram outlived every geographically accurate map of the same network.
There is no algorithm behind this print and no AI. Every line was placed by hand, and anyone who has done the job will recognise their own line immediately, and probably argue with where I have put someone else's. That argument is the point.
Who is this print actually for
Event producers, conference and exhibition designers, AV leads, technical directors, show callers and production managers. Anyone who has run a show and been asked at a party what they actually do.
It works as a leaving gift, a wrap gift at the end of a long project, or a studio piece for an agency wall. It also serves as a recruitment and induction tool, as a new starter can see the shape of the job in about ten seconds.
Which size suits the producer you are buying for
Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper with a textured matte finish, archival and acid-free. Every size is landscape. A2 and A1 come unframed or ready to hang in a black wood frame, which is the only frame colour I offer, and A3 is unframed only.
- A3, 420 x 297 mm, unframed only, £35. Good on a desk or a shelf.
- A2, 594 x 420 mm (23 x 16 in), £45 unframed or £125 in a black wood frame. A home office or a production suite, and a leaving gift.
- A1, 841 x 594 mm (33 x 23 in), £65 unframed or £175 in a black wood frame. An agency wall, where people will stand in front of it and disagree.
- 16x12 in, 24x18 in and 36x24 in are separate formats rather than conversions of the A sizes, priced the same way.
Prices start at £35. For an office or a studio, I would go A1, because this is a map that gets pointed at in conversation rather than glanced at on the way past.
Event Production Process Tube Map Art Print
Live event production drawn as a network, with every role as a line and every milestone as a station. Giclée on 230gsm archival matte paper. A3, A2 or A1, unframed or in a black wood frame, from £35.
The other maps drawn from lived knowledge rather than archives
Most of my range comes from research: session credits, liner notes, and album archives. Two others come from simply living somewhere. The Lewes Tube Map and the Uckfield Tube Map give two East Sussex towns the same treatment, and the Brighton and Hove Albion Map runs six lines across the club's history.
If you want the research side instead, the discography map collection covers seventy artists, each drawn from credited musicians rather than from a list of albums.
Questions I get asked about this print
Is it a timeline?
No. A timeline shows order. This shows connections, which is the part of the job that is genuinely hard to explain to anyone outside it.
Which roles are on the map?
Producer, director, designer, AV lead, show caller and runner, among others, each drawn as its own line.
What research is it based on?
Two decades of designing and producing shows, conferences and brand events across music, theatre and live communications. I did not research this one; I lived it.
What is not on the map?
It is not tied to any one agency, client or sector, so there are no company names on it and no job titles specific to a single employer. It is also not a substitute for a schedule. If you need dates and dependencies, you need a schedule.
Do you still work in live events?
Yes, freelance, on 3D show design for conferences, exhibitions and experiential projects at freelancevisuals.co.uk.
Would it make sense to someone outside the industry?
It reads as a graphic print first. The detail rewards anyone who has worked on a show, which makes it a decent gift for someone in the job rather than a decoration.
The whole job, on one sheet
Drawn by hand from twenty years of doing it, printed as an archival Giclée in A3, A2 or A1, unframed or in a black wood frame, from £35.
Buy the Event Production Process map
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