Winter Concert Volunteer Sign Up Sheet (free, online)

How to set it up

A school winter concert is usually three or four concerts in a week: the little grades one evening, the upper grades the next, the band and choir on their own night. Each one needs the same handful of parents for an hour: two ushers at the doors, someone at the program table, a bake sale or flower table in the lobby, a crew to set and strike the risers, and a few adults in the classrooms where the performers wait their turn. Written as one sheet per concert, that's four links in four newsletters. Written as one page with a section per concert, it's one link the music teacher sends in November that still works the week of the show.

Schools that moved their December events to JustSignup told us the thing they liked was that parents sign up with a name and an email, no account, so the parents who only come to the concert actually do it. The other was that the concert sits on the same page as the class parties and the staff luncheon, so the newsletter has one link for the month. One tip: keep the backstage classroom rows to adults on the school's approved-volunteer list, and say so in the row, the same way you would for a field trip.

Questions people ask

Can a parent help only at their own child's concert?

Yes. Each concert is its own section with its own rows, so a parent picks the evening they're already attending and isn't on the list for the others.

Can the music teacher reuse this next year?

Yes. Copy the page, change the dates, and it's ready. On a school account the office can publish it once as a school template and every music teacher starts from the same page.

Do parents get a reminder?

Everyone who signs up gets a confirmation with the time and a reminder before their spot. The organizer sees which rows are still open and gets a note when a dated spot is still empty two days out.

What does it cost?

The first 14 days are free, every feature, no card. After that, Pro is $12 a month or $99 a year for unlimited pages, co-organizers and no branding line. A whole school with every teacher's pages on one bill is $1,000 a year; see the schools page.

Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?

A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.