A custom-built venue scheduling tool designed to help theaters and performing arts organizations manage space, time, and internal coordination with clarity and confidence.
Client: QED Software / Playtime (New York)
Industry: Arts & Culture, Scheduling SaaS
Overview
As part of the broader Playtime ecosystem, this project focused on streamlining the process of booking rehearsal spaces, performance venues, and shared facilities across multiple teams within cultural organizations. The existing workflows were fragmented across spreadsheets, emails, and outdated calendars, resulting in double-bookings, miscommunication, and friction across departments.
Scope of Work
- UX discovery and research synthesis
- Scheduling logic and interaction design
- Calendar UI and WBS-based planning model
- Design handoff and implementation QA
Approach
The design process began with interviews and observational research with operations managers, production teams, and technical staff. We uncovered a range of use cases, from quick internal holds to complex, recurring bookings involving multiple spaces and departments.
Our solution combined a flexible calendar interface with a high-level Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) view, enabling users to visualize time allocations in the context of a broader production plan. This was especially valuable for theater-style venues with layered planning needs across departments (e.g., lighting, set design, rehearsals, tech runs).
The final design featured drag-and-drop scheduling, availability logic, color-coded status indicators, and metadata tagging — all synced with Playtime’s CRM and communications tools for seamless coordination.
Impact
- Reduced scheduling conflicts and redundant communication by centralizing space management.
- Enabled cultural organizations to plan complex events with greater clarity and foresight.
- The WBS view provided operational leadership with a clear roadmap of production phases and time allocations across venues.
- Laid the foundation for future automation features such as approval flows and booking requests.
Tools & Methods
Figma, FigJam, Jira, user journey mapping, WBS modeling, component-based UI system.
