Freeze

A dated line on the runway after which nothing countable changes. Vendor orders, food counts, printed materials, the program, the head count you gave the venue. The point isn’t that change is bad, it’s that past this line every change costs more than it returns, and the last two weeks are needed for the work that can only happen last: briefing volunteers, writing the run of show, and resting. After the freeze the job stops being deciding and starts being executing. Good ideas that arrive late go on a list for the next event rather than into this one. The film equivalent is picture lock.

Source: Practitioner convention. Crestline’s conference planning checklist puts the hard line at two weeks out, with all vendor orders, catering counts, and materials finalized by then. The label “freeze” is borrowed from software release practice, where a code freeze does the same job for the same reason.

First used in: 1.3 · The runway.