George said " they "gave away" almost 15 minutes between them" - hey, we did it on purpose George, so we could hear more of you!! (actually I finished only slightly early, but we did start late, so I only played only 3 instead of the 5 I'd planned).

The worst case I've known was half of a well known duo (not us) who arrived late for a biggish festival, and his band arrived even later, and they then proceeded to rehearse all though everyone else's sound check, so we only has a silent line check, and not even a word of an apology. :-(

Mea culpa re too many instruments, but if that's the set you're doing, those are the instruments you need. But to minimse hassle, both Tom and I have pre-set minimixers on stage, so we send pre-prepared mixes to the desk, and the tuning is also scheduled into the act, so he tunes while I ramble, and vice versa.

But even so we still overrrun occasionally. The problem is that some MCs run to a tight schedule, while others are happy to be flexible, having built a bit of lee-way into the timesheet.

We have a clock on the floor between us, but we still look to the MC to give us the final finger - because even if you start late but you can sometimes finish later still - if that's ok with the boss. And if it's not we'll gladly finish early.

Just as long as you can yet in that last 'CD-shifting' song!