Pilots with twenty thousand hours still run the pre-flight checklist before every takeoff. Not because they've forgotten how to fly, because the checklist is what catches the one item that experience and adrenaline miss. A volunteer-run event deserves the same respect: the coordinator who has run forty game nights is exactly the person who'll forget the extension cord, because their brain has filed it under "automatic."
This is the master checklist for a club-hosted event: a home game, a tournament day, a fall festival. Steal it whole, cross out what doesn't apply, and add your club's quirks at the bottom. The structure matters more than any single line: two weeks out, week of, day of, day after. Four passes, and nothing slips.
Two weeks out: lock the structure
This pass is about decisions and commitments: the things with lead times.
People
- Publish volunteer shifts for every station (gate, concessions, raffle, setup, teardown, floater)
- Confirm a lead for each station: one name, not "the gate folks"
- Identify your day-of coordinator (the single person everyone texts)
Money and sales
- Put tickets on sale online; post the link everywhere your families already look
- Confirm pricing signage matches the ticket page (adult, student, family cap)
- Open raffle or 50/50 pre-sales if your event runs one
Stuff
- Inventory the supply bins; order concessions stock, cups, napkins, first-aid refills
- Order anything printed: banners, programs, price signs
- Confirm facility booking, lights, and access (who physically has the key?)
Communication
- Send the save-the-date blast to families with the ticket link
- Confirm sponsor commitments and any PA scripts they're owed
One week out: confirm and fill gaps
This pass converts plans into named humans and physical objects.
- Send volunteer reminders; chase unfilled shifts personally (a direct ask fills what a signup link won't)
- Walk the venue once: where does each station physically go? Power? Lighting? Trash?
- Test payments end-to-end: buy a real $1 ticket, scan it, refund it; run a tap-to-pay test at the stand
- Print the station guides: one laminated page per station with prices, tasks, and the coordinator's number
- Print the edge-case card for the gate crew (already-scanned, dead phone, name lookup)
- Stage the supply bins by station, labeled, by the door they'll leave from
- Push the final ticket reminder to families ("skip the line, scan in")
- Check the weather; name your call-time and rain decision-maker now, not Saturday at 6 a.m.
Day of: the run sheet
Times assume an evening event; shift everything for a morning start.
T-minus 2 hours: setup crew
- Unlock, lights on, trash cans out, restrooms checked
- Stations physically built: tables, signs, coolers, power
- Payment devices charged and signed in; one test transaction per station
- Scoreboard/PA tested; halftime script taped next to the mic
T-minus 1 hour
- Concessions pre-staging begins (wrap the first wave before the rush)
- Gate lanes set: "tickets ready" and "buy here" signs out at the parking-lot edge
- Cash pouch floats counted and written down, if you still run cash at all
T-minus 30 minutes: all-hands brief (5 minutes, everyone)
- Who's the coordinator, where's first aid, where do problems go
- Each station lead confirms staffing and supplies
- Gate crew: one demo scan, review the edge-case card
During the event
- Coordinator floats; never staffs a station (the firefighter doesn't also run the snack table)
- Restock pass at each break
- Halftime script executed: raffle draw, sponsor shoutouts, announcements
- Shift changes happen at the station with a 2-minute handoff, not in the parking lot
Closing
- Each station closes out before its crew leaves: digital totals pulled, any cash counted by two people, numbers written on the station sheet
- Lost-and-found swept, trash out, supplies back in labeled bins
- Facility walkthrough and lockup by a named person
Day after: the 30-minute close
The event isn't over until the loop closes, and this is the pass most clubs skip.
- Reconcile: every station's recorded total vs. actual. Digital stations reconcile themselves; investigate any cash gap today, while memories exist
- Deposit any cash; confirm digital payouts are on their way to the club account
- Send thank-yous: volunteers (named, specific), sponsors (with a photo of their shoutout)
- Write the five-line debrief: what ran out, what broke, who no-showed, what surprised you, one thing to change
- Update this checklist with that one thing: the checklist is a living document or it's a relic
Making it real: one Saturday at Mill Creek
Here's the checklist surviving contact with reality. The Mill Creek Cougars host their October home tournament: six games, maybe 800 people across the day. Two weeks out, shifts went up and filled slowly; the week-of personal asks filled the last four slots. The Friday walkthrough caught that the second snack table had no power for the coffee pots, solved with one extension cord instead of a morning crisis. Day-of, a gate volunteer no-showed; the floater absorbed it, exactly as designed. The halftime raffle drew on schedule because the script was taped to the mic, not in someone's memory.
Sunday's debrief: hot chocolate sold out by 10 a.m. (double it), the family-cap sign was too small (reprint), and the QR self-order line at the snack table cut the rush so much they'll drop to two volunteers per shift next time. Five lines, three improvements, filed for November.
One honest note: a paper checklist can't remind anyone. The clubs that run this smoothest put the shifts, the ticket sales, and the day-after numbers in one system. That's exactly the job HometownLift was built for, with shift reminders that chase volunteers automatically and every station's sales reconciled in one report before Sunday's coffee. Supporters cover the small fees at checkout, and the club keeps 100% of what the day raises.
The bottom line
Great event days aren't run from memory. They're run from four passes: lock structure two weeks out, convert plans to named people and tested gear the week of, follow a timed run sheet on the day, and close the loop with a 30-minute debrief after. Steal this list, laminate your version, and let every event make it one line smarter.
When you want the checklist, the shifts, and the money all in one place, see how HometownLift runs event day.