Concert scripts are written for two different cases. An artist’s solo concert rests on the setlist: the order of songs and what happens between them. A festive or variety concert, for example on a city or village day, rests on the host and the change of acts. The goal is the same: the crowd should reach the finale at its peak, not tired.
Setlist dramaturgy
- A strong start. The first 2–3 songs are energetic and familiar. People are still finding seats and need to be pulled in
- New and calm songs in the middle. New material, acoustic, talking to the crowd. The room rests here
- The build. Hits back to back, the tempo rises
- The climax. The song of the night everyone is waiting for
- The encore. 1–2 songs after leaving the stage. Sometimes the encore is stronger than the main finale
A common mistake is putting all the hits at the start. The crowd sings for half an hour, then comes a dip that is hard to climb out of. Better to keep one or two big hits for the end.
A festive concert script with a host
A variety concert at a city festival, village day or an institution’s anniversary is built from acts by different groups. The rules are similar:
- Open with a bright act: a choir, an ensemble, a whole dance group
- Alternate genres: song, dance, reading, song again
- Put speeches by officials at the start and keep them short
- Put children’s acts in the first half, before the children get tired
- Close with a joint number: all performers on stage, a song the whole audience knows
The host’s lines between acts should be shorter than the acts. The group’s name, one sentence about it and the introduction are enough.
Where the crowd sags
- Long pauses between songs for changeovers and tuning
- Three or four slow or unfamiliar songs in a row
- Long monologues from the stage
- The second half of a variety concert, if the acts are too similar
Interaction helps: ask the crowd to sing along, clap, raise their hands. The strongest option is when the crowd visually becomes part of the show.
A climax with audience flashlights
Viewers raise their flashlights on slow songs anyway. We make it controllable. Before the climax a QR code appears on the screen, viewers open the page, and the room’s flashlights flash to the beat, run in waves, light up by sections. At the Pavel Pikovsky and Vasily Urievsky concert in Nizhny Novgorod we used the seating plan to set which seats glowed in which colour.
Commands travel via ultrasound through the venue sound, so the show works even when the network is overloaded. More about the technology in how the light show works.
How to fit the show into a concert script
- One or two songs before the climax: QR code on the screen, a short announcement by the host or artist
- The climax: on the main song the crowd lights up, stage lights are dimmed
- The encore: a second run on the last song
- Afterwards: a merch, next-concert or sponsor page in viewers’ browsers
A concert script template
A table works best: time, act or song, duration, who is on stage, host line, sound, light and screen, props. The sound engineer and lighting designer look at their own columns. General principles of such a table in the article on the event script.
FAQ
How long is a concert? A solo club concert usually runs 1.5–2 hours, a festive variety concert 1–1.5 hours. Longer than that the crowd gets tired, especially outdoors.
Does the light show need a rehearsal? It is enough to check at the soundcheck that the signal track plays through the main venue sound.
How concert organisation works as a whole, in the article on the concert promoter. Formats and prices on the concert light show page.