Stage plots
How to make a stage plot for your band
A stage plot is a top-down drawing of your band on stage. This guide walks through how to build one from scratch, what to put on it, and how to keep it readable for the people who will set the stage before you arrive.
Before you draw anything: collect the facts
Most bad stage plots are not drawing problems, they are information problems. Before you open anything, write down who is on stage, what each person brings, what each person needs to hear, and what each position needs plugged in.
Ask every member three questions: what do you play, what do you need power for, and what do you need in your monitor. The answers are the whole plot.
- Every performer and the instrument they play
- Backline they bring versus backline they expect the venue to supply
- Anything that needs mains power: amps, keyboards, pedalboards, laptops, in-ear packs
- Anything that needs a DI: keys, acoustic guitars, bass, backing tracks
- How many separate monitor mixes the band actually needs, and who listens to each
Step 1 — Start from the stage, not from the band
Draw the stage first and treat it as fixed. A plot that assumes twelve metres of width is useless in a club, and a plot with no sense of scale forces the crew to guess distances that matter for cable runs and sightlines.
Use the convention everybody in live production already reads: the drawing is seen from above, looking at the stage from the audience. Mark upstage (back) and downstage (front) so nobody has to work it out.
Step 2 — Place the performers
Position people the way you actually play, not the way you wish you looked. If the drummer is on a riser, draw the riser. If the keyboard player stands stage left and sings, that changes where a vocal mic, a monitor and a power drop have to be.
Label every position with the person's role rather than only their name — "lead vocal / guitar" tells a visiting engineer more than a first name does.
Step 3 — Add backline and equipment
Draw each amplifier, cabinet, drum kit, keyboard stand and pedalboard where it will physically sit. This is the part local crews use to build the stage before load-in, so specificity pays for itself.
- Mark clearly what you bring and what the venue must supply
- Give acceptable alternatives where you have them, so a substitution is not a phone call
- Show drum riser size if you need one, rather than just writing "riser"
Step 4 — Mark monitors, power and DI positions
Monitors are the most common source of stage confusion. Number each wedge and say who listens to it, or state which performers use in-ears and whether the packs are yours.
Then mark power drops and DI positions. These two details are invisible to the band and critical to the crew: they decide where cables run and how long the changeover takes.
Step 5 — Make it readable
The plot is read in a dark room, often printed in black and white, often on a phone. Design for that.
- One page, portrait or landscape, no decoration
- Text large enough to survive printing and photocopying
- A legend for any symbol that is not obvious
- The act name, a version or date, and a technical contact on the same page
Step 6 — Keep it in sync with the rest of your rider
A stage plot on its own is half a document. Every source drawn on the stage should appear as a numbered channel on the input list, and the plot should sit at the front of the technical rider that explains the rest.
The practical difficulty is drift: you change a keyboard, and now the drawing, the channel list and the PDF you emailed last month disagree. ArtistRider avoids that by treating the rider as structured data rather than a layout — objects placed on the stage carry meaning, so the channel and equipment lists follow from the same source.
A short checklist before you send it
- Does every person on stage have a position, a label and a monitor answer?
- Is every powered item shown near a power drop?
- Does every sound source have a matching channel on the input list?
- Is it obvious what the venue must supply?
- Is there a name and a contact on the page?