Planetarium Show Development Planner

Morrison Planetarium California Academy of Sciences
How it works

Understanding the Show Development Timeline

How a new show goes from confirmation to opening night, step by step.

13 weeksfrom confirming a new show to its premiere
10 Academy teamsinvolved along the way

The development timeline

Six phases, counted back from premiere. Click a phase to see what happens and its tasks. For real dates for your team, see the Team heads-up timeline.

For each team

Team Heads-Up Timeline

When the Planetarium Manager will contact each team about a new show, and what each team does after.

Planetarium ManagerJacque Benitez
jbenitez@calacademy.org

Start from the premiere date

Every date below is counted back from the premiere. Enter the premiere date of a confirmed show to see its timeline.

Type your show's premiere date, e.g. 6/5/2027. Pre-set to an example.

These are estimated dates. Exact dates depend on other Academy operations, events and priorities.

Find your team

Choose your team to see when you'll hear from the Planetarium Manager, and what your team does and when.

How dates are figured
  1. Source: the Planetarium's standard show development timeline. Each task's start and due date is expressed as days before premiere, so the same pattern can be laid onto any target date.
  2. Premiere is taken as the day after the Member Preview. On that basis, confirming the new show and its premiere date falls 92 days, about 13 weeks, before opening.
  3. Work tasks that would land on a Saturday or Sunday move to the following Monday. Premiere, previews and the confirmation milestone keep their exact offsets.
  4. The timeline schedules nothing between confirming the new show and its premiere date and frames and audio arriving (about 6½ weeks). That window is shown as time for the show source to prepare deliverables.
  5. The Planetarium Manager gives Membership, Advancement, Guest Experience, Guest Education, MarComm and Student Education & GE a heads-up on the day the new show and its premiere date are confirmed. Teams not on that list (Viz Studio, Web team, EE-Planet) are shown hearing from the Planetarium Manager by the working day before their first task.
  6. All dates are estimates. Exact dates depend on other Academy operations, events and priorities, and holidays and staff availability aren't accounted for.