A conference or offsite program by day and track, built to be checked on a phone between sessions.
People open an event schedule dozens of times over two days, for about ten seconds each: where should I be, and when is lunch. This one is the program for Fingerpost 2027, a made-up conference on signs and maps with 25 sessions in three tracks. It doesn't try to highlight the session that's on now. That would mean trusting every phone's clock and time zone, and a wrong highlight sends people to the wrong room. Large start times do that job.
Who it's for
Whoever is running the event: a conference organizer, an office manager planning the company offsite, a volunteer behind a weekend meetup. Send it with the joining instructions a week ahead, and again on the first morning.
It's the attendee's view. Your crew's run sheet, with load-in times and who holds which microphone, is a separate document. And if sessions need reserved seats, use a booking tool for that part. The page can't take sign-ups, and it forgets which track someone picked as soon as they reload.
What a good one contains
- Start times you can find with a thumb. Here they're the heaviest type in every row, down the left edge.
- The room on every session. "Loft" on all seven Maps sessions looks repetitive on a laptop. In a corridor it's the one word someone needs.
- Real dates with their weekdays. "Thursday, March 11" survives being forwarded to a colleague. "Day 1" doesn't.
- Breaks and meals as rows of their own. Lunch at 12:15, where it is, and which table has the vegetarian dishes.
- Buttons for one day and one track. Someone following Maps needs 7 of the 21 parallel sessions. Main-stage sessions stay in every view, so nobody filters the keynote away.
- Speakers in one line. A name and where they're from. Bios belong on the event's website.
- A dated line for changes. "Updated Tuesday, March 9" and what changed. People who looked last week need a reason to look again.
When a session moves
Something will change in the last week: a speaker's flight, a room that turns out too small. Fix the page in the conversation where you made it and publish it over the same link, so the one in everybody's inbox still leads to the current program. Change the dated line and tag the session itself. A second link splits the room, because half of it keeps opening the first.
Before it goes out, read it on your own phone, standing up. Check each date against a calendar, check that every session ends before the next one starts, and look for a speaker booked into two rooms at 10:30. Then ask someone who wasn't in the planning meetings to find Friday's lunch.
How to send it
As an open link. Every attendee needs it and nothing in it is private. Put the link in the joining email and behind a QR code at the registration desk.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
