Next Cue panel
The Next Cue panel lists the cues still to come in the current song, with a live countdown on each, so the operator and the stage manager always know what is next. Cues here are information for people: nothing in this panel sends a signal. (MIDI and OSC triggers are separate and fire at their own timecode.)
Accessing the panel
Click the NEXT CUE tab at the right end of the tab row in the right-hand panel. The tab is always there, whatever optional tabs you have switched on, and the panel works whether or not a song is playing. Without a song loaded it asks you to load one; for a song with no cues it shows only the next-song row.
What the panel shows
One row per upcoming cue of the active song, in time order — every cue after the playhead, not just the next few:
- #n — the cue's position in the song (it keeps its number when a department filter hides others). In the last 5 seconds the
#becomes!. - Department chip — the department of the cue's first tag, in its colour. Cues with no department have no chip.
- Rigging height — for rigging cues, the move such as 8.7→4.2m.
- Label and a countdown such as -0:42. The panel shows time remaining, not the SMPTE address.
The first row is the imminent cue and is drawn largest; the rows below shrink and fade. The imminent row also shows the cue's note on a second line, so the person calling does not need to open the Calling Script.
The row at the bottom is always the next song and the time left in the current one. On the last song it reads End of Setlist. Skipped songs are passed over when LTCast works out which song is next. In the last 30 seconds of a song, when no cues are left (and chase is not on), the panel also previews the first cue of the next song.
Click a row to jump the playhead to that cue — useful in rehearsal. While chase owns the playhead, rows do not respond.
Standby and GO escalation
The imminent cue's row changes colour as it approaches, so you can see how close it is without reading the number. It turns amber when the cue enters its standby window — 30 seconds by default, or the cue's own standby setting — and red in the final 5 seconds. The full-screen Operator face uses the same colours.
For an audible version, tick Cue standby/GO beep under Settings → Workflow → Appearance. It is off by default. It plays one lower beep when the next cue enters standby and two higher beeps when it reaches the final 5 seconds, so you catch it with your eyes on the stage. It follows the next cue of the active song whatever the department filter says, and uses the same audio output as the Show Timer beep (Show Timer beep audio in the same tab) — set that to Silent to mute all alerts.
Department filtering
If the show has departments, a row of pills appears under the NEXT CUE title: All depts and one pill per department. The six standard departments are there by default. Click department pills to show only those departments' cues — for example Lighting alone during a lighting call, or Lighting and Rigging together. While a filter is on, cues with no department are hidden. A selected pill takes the department's own colour. The filter is for this session only: it resets to All depts each time LTCast starts, so a stale filter cannot hide cues in a later show.
The filter applies to this panel and to the pop-out overlay. It does not affect the standby/GO beep, the Operator face or the Calling Script, which always show every cue.
When there is nothing left
After the last cue of a song has passed, the cue rows disappear and only the next-song row remains, counting down to the end of the song. There is no separate "end of sequence" message.