# Forty-five minutes each, and nobody voted on it

> A running order taped to a wall in biro, four lines in one hand, is the only copy of the night's schedule that exists — and the last line isn't about the music at all.

August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-set-times-written-in-biro

Four lines in biro, taped to a wall at a slight tilt. `8.15 PALE FRAME`. `9.00 WEAK SIGNAL`.
`9.45 THE HOLLOWS`. `10.30 DOORS SHUT`.

One person wrote this sheet, once, and it is the only copy that exists.

## Why is every slot forty-five minutes?

Because that's what fits between a door time and a curfew, once you count backwards.

Three acts, a changeover, and a hard stop at half ten leaves about forty-five minutes each if
nothing runs long — and something usually runs long. Nobody in this scenario measured a set with a
stopwatch and decided on forty-five as an ideal length. The number is what was left over after the
room's actual constraints — when the doors opened, when they had to shut — were subtracted from
the evening, the same arithmetic that decides
[who plays first and who plays last](/stories/support-band-billing) on any given night.

That's why the times on the sheet look uneven if you check them: 8.15, 9.00, 9.45. Forty-five
minutes, forty-five minutes, and then the room itself gets forty-five minutes of its own.

## What makes the last line different from the other three?

Not the handwriting. The subject.

All four lines are written in the same hand, at the same pressure, with the same pen. Nothing on
the sheet is emphasised over anything else — no line is underlined, bolder, or bigger than the
rest. What sets `10.30 DOORS SHUT` apart is what it names: the first three lines are about acts
taking a stage, and the fourth is about the building. It's the only entry on the sheet that isn't
music at all — the actual policing of that line happens on a different object entirely, the
[list held at the door itself](/stories/the-door-list-on-a-clipboard) — and reading it next to
the other three is what makes that plain.

A schedule that only listed acts would look like a running order for a show. Adding the closing
time turns it into a running order for a room, which is the actual document a person taping this
to a wall needs.

## Why does one hand write the whole sheet?

Because one person is the only authority a running order like this has.

Nobody signs off on this sheet. Nobody stamps it. Its only claim to being correct is that it's
taped to the wall and nothing else is. That works precisely because it's uncontested — a second
hand adding a correction, or a second sheet with different times, would undermine the first one
instantly. Consistency of hand is doing the job a letterhead does elsewhere: it says *this is the
version*. When a time changes, it gets crossed out and rewritten on the same sheet, in the same
hand — a second sheet would raise the question of which one is current, and one sheet with a
correction on it never does.

## Do the invented names on the sheet stand for anything?

No. `PALE FRAME`, `WEAK SIGNAL` and `THE HOLLOWS` are invented for this design and don't refer to
any real act.

If a real running order is the point — your own night, your own three acts — the times and names
are yours to use, and putting them on a shirt is no different from printing a set list. What you
can't do is take somebody else's actual night and print it as though it were yours; a real act's
name belongs to that act, and a real venue's schedule belongs to whoever ran the door that evening.
An invented sheet sidesteps the question and usually reads as more specific, not less, because
nothing about it has to match a real event that a stranger might recognise.

## Does this work for a night that isn't three bands?

Any evening with a fixed running order and a hard stop.

A reading with three readers, a screening with a short before the feature, a night split between two
DJs and a live set — the same sheet with different words on it: a start time per slot, and a line at
the bottom for when the room closes. The format runs on the arithmetic of fitting several things into
one evening and writing down the answer, the same logistics behind
[a classified looking for a third member](/stories/the-ad-looking-for-a-drummer).

## Isn't a handwritten schedule just less useful than a printed one?

Less useful for reading in advance, more useful for being trusted in the room.

A printed running order looks finished before the night has happened, which is the problem: running
orders change up to the last minute, and a printed sheet can't absorb a correction without looking
wrong. A handwritten one can be crossed out and rewritten in front of the person asking — a live
document rather than a finished one, and the four strips of tape are there because everyone taping
one up expects it to come down and go back up before the night is over.

## Does it print well?

Yes — it's flat ink on paper, reproduced at full scale, with no gradient anywhere in it.

Biro on copier paper is high contrast and hard-edged, which survives fabric printing without any
simplification needed. The one thing worth getting right is the tape: keep it as a few clean sheen
marks at the corners rather than rendering it photographically, or it starts competing with the
handwriting for attention. A brick red or a similarly warm mid-tone ground keeps the paper reading
as paper rather than as a white rectangle floating on the shirt.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the running order at [JustOG](/) — the acts or names, the times, and what closes the
night. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made
to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

By the following week the sheet is gone from the wall, and the only record left is whoever kept it.