Help guests find their talks at a multi-room conference

Tag each session with its topics, and guests can tap "Topics" on the Board's Schedule, pick one, like Design, and see just those sessions across every room, with breaks and meals kept in. They don't need an app or an account, and topics are free.

Why a multi-room schedule is hard to read on a phone

Once you have two rooms or more, the Board shows what's on in every room at once. That's right for the day as a whole, and it's explained in One room or several. But a guest who came for the design talks still has to read past every engineering and product session to find theirs, on a phone, between sessions.

A topic cuts that down to what one guest came for.

How to tag sessions with topics

On Schedule, open a session and use its Topics optional field. Pick a topic you've already made, or choose Add a topic for your first one and New topic after that. Each session can have up to three topics, from up to 12 for the whole event. Use the words your guests would use, such as Engineering, Design and Product. A talk that's both design and product can carry both.

All your topics are listed in the Rooms, topics and time zone panel, where you can manage them. If your event says Stages or Places instead of Rooms, the panel uses those words.

Each session's details list its topics, so a guest can see why it turned up in their list.

What guests see on their phone

Guests open the Board by scanning the QR code on a poster or the foyer screen, or by going to cueduck.com and typing the six-character code. Open a Board has the steps.

On Schedule, they tap "Topics" and pick one. They see one topic at a time, and breaks and meals stay in, so lunch doesn't vanish from their day. Topics aren't on the foyer screen, which shows the same Board for everyone, or on the printed programme.

The topic isn't remembered on the phone. If a guest opens the Board again later from the QR code or the short code, it starts on all topics, so they tap "Topics" and pick theirs again.

Guests can also star the sessions they want. They gather under "Mine", a pill with a star and a count, so each guest has their own list. It's kept on their phone only, and CueDuck stores nothing about guests.

An example: just the design talks at Harbourside

Say you're running Harbourside, a conference with three rooms: Room 1, Room 2 and the Garden Room. You've tagged its sessions Design, Engineering and Product.

A designer scans the QR code on the poster by the door, taps "Topics" on the Schedule and picks Design. They see the 10:00 talk in Room 1 and the 11:30 workshop in the Garden Room, with lunch still in its place.

When a design talk moves on the day

Say the 11:30 workshop has to move to 14:00.

1. Choose Change a session and pick the workshop.
2. Set its new time.
3. Check Was and Now, add a line in Note for guests (optional) if it helps, then choose Post change.

Every open phone and the foyer screen show it within about 10 seconds. Guests see the old time crossed out, in the schedule and in Changes. A designer looking at just the Design topic sees it the same way: the old time crossed out beside the new one, with a "Moved" chip. If the room changes too, the old room is crossed out beside the new one.

Moving sessions is for your team. Stewards can post normal notices from their own phone, but they can't move sessions. The rest is in Posting on the day.

If you've got a multi-room event coming up, put your programme into CueDuck for free at cueduck.com and tag a few sessions to see it on your own phone.