For program chairs, before the schedule goes public
Slot DeskLay out the schedule - and catch the clash nobody sees until the speaker is on a plane.
Paste your accepted talks, your rooms and the day's breaks. Free in your browser: the grid laid out with standard slot lengths, keynotes as bookends and rooms matched to expected audience, then all four clash types - room hours, speaker availability (with co-speakers checked together), two talks in one room, one speaker in two rooms - plus rooms too small for their crowd, the buffer against walking time, staggered or synchronized starts, pacing and a publish-by date. A run writes the schedule plan, or finds talks the same people would want at the same time.
1 Your event free
2 The grid, checked free
What the page flags
The grid
What moved
3 Plan or overlap metered
Pricing as soon as the session is ready...
Sign inThe reply could not be read. Here it is as it came back:
Slots
Fixed points
Breaks and sync points
Rooms
Clashes
Buffer and track starts
Pacing
If something breaks on the day
Publication
Record
Caveats
The page's check of this reply
4 Saved grids
How it works
The page works in the order a careful chair does: one slot length for every session (the talk plus its buffer), the keynotes as plenary bookends in the biggest room and the venue's breaks at their contracted times, then every other session hardest-constrained first - the speaker free on one morning goes before the speaker free all week - matched to rooms on expected audience, never on which track feels it deserves the big room. Workshops take consecutive slots; lightning talks share one.
Then it checks the finished grid for the four clash types a scheduling tool models: a session outside its room's hours, a speaker outside their window (for a shared session, the window everyone on it shares), two sessions in one room, and one speaker in two rooms - plus rooms too small for their crowd, which no clash check sees. A single-room event drops the overlap checks: only availability can fail. Benchmarks are calibration, not targets: FOSDEM 2026 ran 1,079 events in 37 rooms with a 10-minute gap; PyCon US 2026 staggers its starts so the hallway never empties at once.