Most of your staff are new.
Event teams add crew all the time, and volunteers change every year. Each new person needs a post, a time and a supervisor.
For large events
Thousands of new staff. One plan for every post.
Say how your event runs, from crowd manager ratios to who can pour beer. OnlineScheduling places your staff and volunteers, checks every change against your rules, and tells you when one would break.
How your business runs
A crew of strangers, assembled for one day.
A large event runs on people who have never worked together. A small core team leads temps, volunteers and crews from staffing companies. Many join in the last few weeks, and some work only one day.
Every gate, zone, aid station, beer tent and medical tent needs the right people at the right time. Fire codes can set crowd manager counts, most states license guards, some require trained alcohol servers, and credentials decide who enters which zone. Then the gates open, and the plan meets the crowd.
Staff, volunteers and medics Gates, zones and tents Radios, carts and scanners
Where scheduling breaks
Five ways event day falls apart.
Most event staffing lives in sign-up sheets, credential lists and a dozen spreadsheets. That works until the gates open.
The rules come from codes and licenses.
Your fire code may call for trained crowd managers, often one for every 250 people. Your state may license guards and require trained alcohol servers. One careless move can leave a zone short of what's required.
Not every badge opens every gate.
Credentials decide who can work back of house, on the field or at the finish. Send someone to the wrong zone and the post stays empty.
Some people never show.
Volunteers and temps cancel late or don't arrive. The gaps show up at dawn, and you have minutes to fill them before the gates open.
Too many sheets, too little time.
Who signed up, who's trained and who holds which credential live in different files. Lead times keep shrinking, and every change means checking them all again.
Say how it works
Your rules, in plain words.
Tell OnlineScheduling how your event runs, the way you'd brief a new operations lead. It reads each rule back, and nothing changes until you confirm.
Crowd manager ratios, credentials, ages and licenses are all just rules. The schedule is checked against what you tell it about each person.
Say “always” or “try to,” and it knows which rules can bend.
A rule in plain words
“Always have a trained crowd manager for every 250 people a zone holds.”
Race day posts by zone Sat Oct 17
5 a.m.7 a.m.9 a.m.11 a.m.1 p.m.
Gate B
Security
Medical
Beer tent
Radios
Every zone has its crowd managers
Your five building blocks
Five building blocks, in event words.
Every schedule is made of the same five pieces. Here's what they look like for a large event.
What you schedule
StaffVolunteersSupervisorsCrowd managersGuardsMedicsGatesZonesAid stationsTentsRadiosCartsScanners
When it's needed
Setup daysPacket pickupEvent dayShifts by postShifts by zoneTeardown
Who's on it
Maya, a trained crowd manager, works Gate C from 6 to 11 a.m. on race day.
When it's not free
Day jobsClassesAnother event that weekendTime off
All of it is read as busy time from each person's own calendar.
How it works here
Your rules, in your own words. “Nobody works a zone their credential doesn't open.”
When plans change
Gate B surges at 7:40. Every move is checked.
Race morning, Gate B fills faster than planned. You say “Gate B needs ten more people now. The zone next door is quiet.” Ten people move over from that zone, so they stay near where they started.
Security posts keep their trained staff, and every 25 staff still have a supervisor. One move would leave the beer tent without a certified server. You hear which rule and why, and Theo goes instead. Every move is on the record.
Gate B needs ten more people now. The zone next door is quiet.
Done. Ten people moved from Zone C to Gate B. Rosa stays at the beer tent as its certified server, so Theo went instead. Every move is on the record.
No-shows work the same way.
At 10:00, six beer tent volunteers haven't arrived. You say “six no-shows at the north beer tent.” Their posts are filled with people who are 21 or older from posts that can spare them, and a certified server stays on duty. The new posts show up in their calendars.
Ask your assistant
Ask from the command tent. Staff see it in their calendar.
Connect OnlineScheduling to the AI assistant you already use, like ChatGPT, Claude and Muse, and schedule by asking. Staff and volunteers connect their own calendar from a phone or computer browser, so their posts show up where they already look. No app to download.
Your AI assistant Connected to OnlineScheduling
Who's free Saturday morning and has finished security training? Omar, Dee and Luis are trained and free from 5 a.m. Gate B still needs one more trained guard. Book Omar? Yes. And put Ava and the volunteers from her running club together at the mile 12 water station. Done. Ava and her 8 club volunteers are at mile 12 from 7 to 11, with Kai as their supervisor. Move Marco from gear check to Gate C at noon, and tell me if that breaks a rule. Done, and no rules break. Gear check keeps 4 people, and Gate C has 1 crowd manager for its 250.
OnlineScheduling · nowOmar's calendar updated: Saturday, Gate B security, 5:00 a.m.
OnlineScheduling · nowOmar's calendar updated: Saturday, Gate B security, 5:00 a.m.Google Calendar Apple Calendar Outlook
Questions
Large event questions, answered.
Something else on your mind? Ask when you request access. We read every request ourselves.
Can it follow our fire code, license and credential rules?
Yes. Say them as rules, like “one crowd manager for every 250 people a zone holds” or “nobody works a zone their credential doesn't open.” The schedule is checked against what you tell it about each person.
How many people can one event hold?
There's no limit.
Where do staff see moves made on the day?
In their own calendar. Moves show up there like any other shift. Staff can also add, drop or swap shifts, and managers can change the schedule by hand.
Can we run several events or venues from one account?
Yes. One location or many, each with its own rules, plus global rules for all of them.
Do staff and volunteers need an app?
No, but each person needs an account. They connect their own calendar from a phone or computer browser, and busy time there is checked before anyone is booked.
Can we bring in our sign-up sheets and staff lists?
Yes. Upload the spreadsheets you already have.
Request access
Bring us your hardest post rule.
We're opening access in stages. Tell us how your event runs, and we'll reply within one business day.
1Tell us how you schedule.
2We read every request ourselves.
3We reply within one business day.
Your hardest rule, for example “Beer tent staff are 21 or older, and one always holds server certification.”
Tell us who you are, what you schedule and the rule your current tool can't handle. It's one short form.
Request access