# How to build a cueing system for hybrid events Cue on-site and remote presenters from one place: visual wrap-up warnings, silent text cues, and synced countdowns for every stage and screen. A cueing system tells presenters what they cannot ask mid-sentence: how much time is left, when to wrap, and what changed since rehearsal. Hybrid events make this harder because the people who need cues are in two places — on a stage you control, and in home offices you do not. The practical fix is to make every cue a synced screen. This guide builds a hybrid cueing setup with MaestroTimer: one room, countdowns and messages on every presenter-facing display, on-site and remote alike. ## What a cueing system has to deliver Strip the hardware tradition away and cueing is three messages, each with a deadline. The three: - Time state, continuously: how long this segment has left, visible at a glance. - The wrap-up warning, unmissably: a staged signal as the end approaches, needing no interpretation. - Ad-hoc instructions, silently: a text cue only the presenter sees — the schedule slipped, take questions now, look at camera two. ## Cueing the room On-site, the cue surface is a confidence monitor: any screen facing the stage, showing the room's viewer link fullscreen. The setup: 1. Create a room and build the running order — one named timer per talk or segment, with speaker and notes. 2. Open the viewer on the stage-facing screen. Every view in MaestroTimer is a link, so the confidence monitor is a browser and a URL. 3. Set wrap-up thresholds per timer. The display changes appearance in stages as time runs low — the presenter reads it peripherally, the audience never sees it. 4. Keep the controller open at front of house; messages typed there appear next to the countdown on stage, bold, colored, or flashing to match the urgency. ## Cueing the remote presenters The hybrid half is where link-based cueing pays off: the remote presenter's cue screen is the same viewer link, opened on their second monitor or phone beside the meeting window. They see the same countdown, the same wrap-up stages, and the same messages as the stage — one cue system, not a [Zoom](https://maestrotimer.com/articles/zoom-timer-app)-chat improvisation bolted onto a hardware setup. There is nothing for them to install, which matters when your presenter is a keynote guest, not a colleague you can support. ## Keeping both halves on one clock Cueing collapses when the stage and the stream drift apart, so the running order should advance itself: linked timers start each segment as the previous ends, and a scheduled timer starts the countdown to the published start time. Before doors and before the stream starts, the live connections view is the cue system's pre-flight: it lists every attached device — the confidence monitor, the moderator's tablet, each remote presenter's browser — so missing screens are found at rehearsal, not on air. Hand out views by role while you are at it: the viewer to presenters, the operator view to the show caller, the agenda to production — each link shows exactly the slice its reader needs. ## Feeding cues into the production When the stream itself needs the countdown — a break clock for viewers, a starting-soon scene — put the agenda link into your production software as a browser source. In [OBS](https://maestrotimer.com/articles/countdown-timer-obs), enable "Shutdown source when not visible" on that source: the page then costs nothing while other scenes are live and reconnects the moment its scene comes up. If you want a full-frame break clock rather than a rundown, the viewer will do it — but the viewer is the surface that renders messages and wrap-up colours, so anything you cue while it is on program goes out to the audience. Cut it off program before you cue anyone. One room still drives all of it: the stage screen, the remote presenter's phone, and the on-stream graphic are different views of the same room, and the operator changes all of them with one action. ## FAQ ### What is a cueing system for events? In live production the term covers everything used to cue the people running and performing a show: cue lights for performers and operators, and intercom for the crew. This guide covers the presenter-facing half of that — a visible countdown, staged wrap-up warnings, and silent text cues, delivered to stage displays and, in hybrid events, to remote presenters' screens. ### How do remote presenters get cues without extra software? Send them the viewer link. It opens in any browser next to their meeting window and shows the same countdown, warnings, and messages as the stage display. ### Can the audience see the cues? No — cues live on presenter-facing surfaces: the confidence monitor and the presenters' own screens. The view you put on program is the agenda, which carries the countdown and the running order but not the messages or the wrap-up colours. ### How do I know every cue screen is working before the event? The room's live connections view lists every connected device, so the room owner or an admin confirms the stage monitor and each remote presenter are receiving before going live. **Cue both rooms from one seat** — MaestroTimer runs in the browser: synced countdowns, staged wrap-up warnings, and silent messages on every presenter screen — on stage and remote — controlled from one place. [Try MaestroTimer](https://maestrotimer.com)