A stage timer for conferences and speaker events

A conference with twenty speakers stands or falls on whether the third one finishes on time. OnCue Stage puts a large timer in front of every speaker and gives the producer a quiet way to tell them time is up — without walking on stage and without the room noticing.

What goes wrong at conferences

Nobody sets out to overrun. The speaker simply has no way of knowing how long is left, and the producer has no way of telling them.

• A speaker who runs ten minutes over steals them from everyone after him, and the break shrinks until it disappears.
• The producer waves from the side of the stage, the speaker doesn't see it, and the audience does.
• A wall clock or a laptop timer tells the speaker the time of day — not how long they have left.
• In a panel nobody knows when to move to questions, because the timing lived in one moderator's head.
• The printed schedule starts being a lie by the second speaker, with no orderly way to update it.

How it works at a conference

A tablet on the lectern, a phone with the producer

One tablet sits facing the speaker — on the lectern, on a confidence monitor, or on a chair in the front row — counting down their allotted time. The producer controls it from a phone anywhere in the room.

A warning the speaker gets by themselves

The screen turns amber five minutes before the end, orange at two and red at the finish. Most speakers wrap up on their own the moment the colour changes, without anyone having to intervene.

A message when there is something real to say

"2 minutes left", "move to questions", "your mic is off" — typed on the phone, shown large on the speaker's screen, then gone. The audience never sees it and the talk is not interrupted.

Speaker after speaker, without touching anything

Between talks you reset with one tap and set a new length. You can also schedule the exact time the timer starts by itself, so the changeover doesn't depend on someone remembering to press play.

Several stages at the same event

Each room gets its own session and its own code. Running two parallel tracks means two independent rooms, each from its own phone.

Before the doors open

Five minutes of setup, once, on the morning of the conference.

Put the screen where the speaker actually looks

On the lectern or directly in front of it, not off to the side. If there is a confidence monitor, put the tablet beside it — that is where their eyes already go.

Pair with the code, then lock the screen

Type the 5-digit code into the tablet, then lock it onto the timer view. An accidental touch from a speaker won't open a menu mid-talk.

Enter the talk lengths in advance

Each speaker with their own length, so between talks you press once instead of typing a number while the room waits.

Keep the tablet on power

A conference is a full day. If there is no socket nearby, battery-saver standby blacks the screen out between talks and brings it back with a press.

Agree one sentence with the speakers

"The screen in front of you shows how long you have left, and when it turns red you are done." That is the entire briefing, and it saves every awkward conversation afterwards.

You can try it today

The timer, the messages and tablet pairing are free. Open the stage screen on the site, type a code, and it is paired to the app on your phone. No cabling and no dedicated hardware.