Digital Signage for Live Events: A Guide
From lobby schedules to wayfinding screens, digital signage improves the event experience. Here is how to set it up with CueDeck's built-in signage.
Digital signage is one of the highest-impact, lowest-effort upgrades you can make to a live event. A screen in the lobby showing the live schedule. A screen by each room door showing what's on now and what's next. A sponsor carousel during breaks.
The problem is that most signage solutions are separate systems — disconnected from your production workflow. Someone has to manually update the slides when the schedule changes. During a delay, the screens show the wrong times until someone remembers to fix them.
Event signage displays in CueDeck are built into the production console. It updates automatically because it reads the same real-time data your operators see.
11 Display Modes
CueDeck includes 11 content modes for signage displays, each designed for a specific use case:
Schedule
Shows the current session (with LIVE indicator) and the next session up. Perfect for room doors and backstage monitors.
Wayfinding
A room directory showing which sessions are happening where. Ideal for registration areas and building entrances.
Agenda Grid
A multi-room grid showing active sessions across all rooms simultaneously. Great for lobby screens at multi-track conferences.
Timeline
A chronological list of every session — past, present, and future — with times, speakers, and rooms. Like a printed programme, but live-updating. LIVE sessions are highlighted in green, ended sessions are dimmed.
Programme
A conference-style programme grid with time slots as rows and rooms as columns. Sessions are placed in their correct grid cells with colour-coded status indicators.
Sponsors
A rotating carousel of sponsor logos and names. Supports images and video formats.
Break Screen
A branded break screen with a coffee icon and customizable message ("Coffee Break," "Lunch Break," "Networking"). Directors can push this to all displays with a single click.
WiFi Info
Shows the network name and password in large, readable text. No more printing WiFi cards.
Recall
A 5-minute countdown with "Resuming Shortly" messaging. Push this globally to recall attendees from breaks.
Stage Timer
A speaker-facing fullscreen countdown for the live session. It turns from green to amber to red as time runs low, and flashes with the time over if the session overruns.
Custom
Freeform text display for any message you need.
Setting Up Displays
From the Signage panel in CueDeck, click Add Display and configure:
- Name — Identify the physical screen ("Lobby Left," "Room B Door")
- Content mode — Choose from the 11 modes above
- Orientation — Landscape or portrait
- Room filter — Limit the display to sessions in a specific room
- Scroll behaviour — Auto-scroll (smooth continuous scroll) or paginate (advance pages every N seconds)
Click Launch to get a URL. Open that URL in any browser on any device — a smart TV, a tablet, a laptop connected to a monitor.
Global Overrides
The most powerful signage feature is the global override. With one click, a director can push any content mode to every connected display simultaneously.
Running a coffee break? Push "Break Screen" globally. Time to recall attendees? Push "5-Min Recall." Want to show sponsors during the transition? Push "Sponsors."
When the override is cleared, each display returns to its configured content mode automatically.
Sequences
For displays that need to rotate between modes (sponsors for 30 seconds, then schedule for 60 seconds, then wayfinding), CueDeck supports sequences — ordered playlists of content modes with configurable durations per slide.
Real-Time Updates
Because signage displays read the same session data as the console, they update automatically when:
- A session goes LIVE
- A delay is applied
- A session ends or is cancelled
- A director pushes a global override
No manual intervention. No separate signage software. No PowerPoint slides to update.
Getting Started
- Sign up for CueDeck and create your event
- Add your sessions and rooms
- Go to the Signage panel and add your first display
- Launch the display URL on your screen
- Push a global override to test it
For the full setup walkthrough, read How to Set Up Your First Event. For the director's perspective on managing signage during a live event, see The Director's Workflow.
