Grounds turnaround scenario planner for back-to-back events
Problem
Turnaround between a concert and the next fixture is planned by memory and a phone call. The head groundsperson estimates how many hours pitch relay, line marking and staging removal will take, based on how the last one went, and tells the venue operations director whether it will be ready. Nothing documents the crew size that estimate assumed or what happens if two people call in sick. When the schedule is tight, whether the pitch is playable is discovered on the morning of the fixture rather than the week before, by which point there is no time left to hire extra hands or move the concert load-out earlier.
Product idea
A planning screen for the person who has to answer 'will it be ready in time' before the calendar is confirmed. Enter the task list for a turnaround (staging removal, pitch relay, line marking, equipment reset) with a duration per task, set crew size and the hours available before gates open, and the tool totals the work against the time and flags whether it fits. Two crew sizes or two schedules can be compared side by side, so the question becomes a number rather than an opinion. It does not schedule shifts or track progress on the day; it only answers whether a plan, on paper, is realistic before it is committed to.
Who it is for
Head groundspeople and facilities managers who build the task list, and venue operations directors who decide whether to commit to a tight turnaround before the calendar is signed off.
Possible first version
A single-screen tool where a task list with durations can be entered or edited, crew size and available hours set as sliders, and a finish time calculated against the deadline, with tasks that push over the line flagged in colour. Two scenarios can be saved and compared side by side. Version one has no integration with the maintenance or booking system: task lists and durations are entered manually, and the output is read on screen or exported as a PDF for the pre-event meeting.
- Build classification
- Micro-tool
- Rough effort
- 1-2 week prototype
- Roles involved
- Head groundsperson, Facilities manager, Venue operations director
- Relevant to
- Venue & stadium operator, Professional club, Collegiate athletics
- Systems in play
- Booking and scheduling calendars, Maintenance and work-order systems, Spreadsheets
- Product framing
- Test or simulate
Questions we get asked
Our head groundsperson already knows from experience whether a turnaround will fit. Why formalise it?
Experience is usually right until crew size or the deadline changes, and that is exactly when a phone-call estimate breaks down. The tool does not replace that judgement, it makes the assumptions behind it visible: which tasks were counted, how long each was assumed to take, and what crew size the estimate depended on. That is what lets someone else in the room challenge the plan before the day, rather than after.
Does this track whether the turnaround is actually on schedule on the night?
No. This is a planning tool used before a schedule is committed, not a live tracker for the crew doing the work. Building a real-time progress board is a different job with different requirements, including devices in the hands of people mid-task, and would dilute the one thing this does well: telling you in advance whether a plan is realistic.
What do we need to have ready before this is useful?
A rough task list with realistic durations for a typical turnaround, which most head groundspeople can produce from memory in an afternoon. It does not need to be precise on day one. The value comes from being able to change one number, crew size or hours available, and see the consequence immediately, which is difficult to do reliably in a phone call or a spreadsheet nobody trusts.
Who keeps the task list accurate once this exists?
Whoever owns turnaround planning day to day, usually the head groundsperson, since they are the one who knows when a task's real duration has drifted from the estimate. The ongoing cost is small: updating a duration after a turnaround that ran long or short. Left unmaintained, the tool will keep producing confident answers based on numbers nobody has checked in a year, which is worse than no tool at all.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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