Venue PA — the complete manual

1Before you begin

You'll need:

• An iPad on iPadOS 15 or newer — any standard iPad from 2017 onward. A good second-hand iPad is ideal for a permanent station.
• An audio lead from the iPad to your amplifier's line input — a 3.5 mm aux lead, or a USB-C adapter for iPads without a headphone jack. Details in the Installation Guide.
• Power — the iPad stays plugged in permanently.
• Your Wi-Fi — for the staff iPhones and the browser page, and for Apple Music, Spotify and radio. Everything else runs offline.

2Install and first launch

1. On the iPad, install Venue PA from the App Store and open it.
2. Your 7-day free trial starts automatically. Every feature is unlocked; there's no account and no sign-up.
3. Along the bottom are the tabs the whole app lives in: Home, Planner, Soundboard, Chimes, Music, Music Plan, Hours, Emergency and Settings.

Home — the time, today's hours, what's next, and the address for the browser page.

The screen stays awake on its own while the app is open.

3Venue name and the idle display

1. Go to Settings → System identity.
2. Set the venue name — for example Riverside Library. It's spoken in the opening and closing calls (“Riverside Library will be closing in 15 minutes”) and shown on the display.
3. Set the system name if you run more than one station; phones and the browser see them as “System name (Venue name)”.

Leave the iPad alone for a minute and it becomes the venue display: your venue's name, a large clock, whether you're open and until when, what's playing, and what's next. Any tap brings the controls straight back.

The idle display — readable across a room, and clearly on duty.

4Opening hours — the heart of it

Venue PA runs on your trading hours, not a timetable. Set them once and the announcements take care of themselves.

1. Open the Hours tab. Under Normal week, switch each day on or off and set the opening and closing times.
2. Under Opening & closing announcements are the four calls that ride on those hours: the welcome at opening, “closing in 15 minutes”, “closing in 5 minutes” and the closed call. Tap ▶ on any of them to hear it on the PA.
3. Tap one to change the words. {venue} and {minutes} are filled in for you, so “{venue} will be closing in {minutes} minutes” becomes “Riverside Library will be closing in 15 minutes”.
4. Want a 30-minute warning too? Add a new one, pick “Before closing” and 30 minutes.

Hours — the week, the calls that follow it, and the holiday calendar.

5The soundboard

The Soundboard tab holds everything the desk might need to say, in three rows:

• Calls — fill-in templates like Page a visitor or Vehicle. Tap, fill the blanks, announce.
• Recorded announcements — announcements in a real voice, recorded on the iPad or an iPhone.
• Spoken messages — text you've typed, read by the announcer voice.

Tapping a recording or message asks “Play on the PA?” first, so a stray tap never goes out over the speakers.

The soundboard — calls, recordings and messages.

6Fill-in calls

Most paging follows a pattern: would {name} please come to {place}. A call keeps the pattern and leaves the blanks for you.

1. Tap a call — say Page a visitor.
2. Type the blanks: the name and the place. The full sentence is shown as you type.
3. Tap Announce now. The chime plays, then the announcer voice says it.

Five calls are included: page a visitor, vehicle, lost child, staff call and session starting. Add your own with + New call — put each blank in braces, for example {name}, {room} or {rego}. Long-press a call to edit or delete it.

7Recordings and spoken messages

Recording an announcement

1. On the Soundboard tap Record. Tap the big microphone, speak, tap again to stop.
2. Listen back. Play it to the PA now, or save it with a name so it's on the soundboard from then on.

Typed messages

Tap Manage next to Spoken messages, add a message with a short name and the words. The announcer voice reads it whenever it's played — from the soundboard, the planner, a promo slot, the iPhone or the browser page.

8Chimes

The Chimes tab holds the attention sound that plays before announcements. Five are built in — Two Tone, Three Note, Bing Bang Bong, Soft Bell and Four Note. Tap one to make it the active chime, or import your own sound file.

Chime events can also be scheduled on the Planner — a chime at noon, say — and chimes dip the music while they play.

Chimes — pick the active one, play it, import more.

9Your own music

On the Music tab, Import MP3s from Files, iCloud Drive or AirDrop. They live on the iPad and play with no internet at all. Albums are grouped with their artwork; play one, shuffle the lot, or pause and skip.

Background music always pauses for an announcement or chime and resumes afterwards.

10The music plan

Rather than scheduling songs, set a mood for each part of the day on the Music Plan tab.

1. Tap Add under Music by time of day.
2. Name it (Morning), set from and to (9:00 – 12:00), and choose the whole library shuffled or a particular album.
3. Leave Only while the venue is open on and the block is clipped to your hours — so it stops at closing without you doing anything.

Music Plan — dayparts on the left, promos on the right.

11Promos between songs

A promo is a short message that plays between songs — never over one — every so many minutes. Today's special, a membership offer, “the café closes at 3”.

1. On Music Plan, switch Promos between songs on and pick how often (every 5 to 120 minutes).
2. Tap Add a promo. Type a new promo and the announcer voice will read it, or pick one of your recordings or messages.
3. Add as many as you like — they take turns.

A library would usually leave promos off. Retail, gyms and leisure centres get a lot out of them.

12Apple Music, Spotify and internet radio

All three live on the Music tab and can be started from the Planner, the iPhone or the browser page.

• Apple Music plays inside the app using the iPad's Apple Music subscription (iPad Settings → Music). The recommended streaming option: nothing to wake, recovers by itself after a restart.
• Internet radio — search for a station or paste a stream address, save it, play it.
• Spotify is optional and needs a one-time venue setup under Settings → Spotify (Spotify's rules mean each venue registers its own free connection — the steps are shown there). For rack installs a dedicated Spotify receiver wired into the amp is the reliable choice.

13The day planner

The Planner tab shows the whole day on a timeline: the open band, the opening and closing calls, music blocks from the music plan, and your own events. Pick any date to see what that day will do.

Adding your own event

1. Tap Add event.
2. Choose what plays — a spoken message, a recording, a chime or music — then the time, and whether it repeats every day, on certain weekdays, or only on this date.
3. Tap an event to change every occurrence, or to change or skip it on just this day. Changed or skipped days are marked.

Planner — the day on one timeline.

14Holidays and special days

On the Hours tab, tap a day on the calendar to close it — nothing plays that day. Tap it again to clear. Tap a day in the list underneath to give it a name (Christmas Day) or different hours — a late-night Friday, say — and every opening and closing call moves with it.

15Set it up from a PC or Mac

The iPad serves its own control page on your Wi-Fi. There's nothing to install.

1. On the iPad, find the address under Settings → Remote Access (it's also on the Home tab) — it looks like http://192.168.1.20:8490.
2. Type it into a browser on any computer on the same Wi-Fi.
3. Enter the pairing code shown on the iPad. The browser remembers it.

You get Today (with a box to type something and have it spoken on the PA straight away), the Soundboard, Hours, Planner, Music, Music Plan, Chimes and Settings — the same things as the iPad, with a real keyboard. Importing music and chimes, recording announcements, and the Apple Music and Spotify sign-ins are done on the iPad itself.

The browser page — here, the soundboard on an office PC.

16The staff iPhone

Venue PA is one app: on an iPhone it becomes the remote.

1. Install Venue PA from the App Store on the staff iPhone and open it.
2. It lists the stations it finds on the Wi-Fi. Pick yours and enter the pairing code from the iPad's Settings → Remote Access. That's a one-time step; it reconnects by itself from then on.

From the phone: a live announcement (tap the mic and speak), the calls and saved messages, the music, the hours and holidays, the chime, and the emergency page. A pocket lock covers the controls after a minute so nothing fires from a pocket — press and hold to unlock.

Speak live over the PA

Hours and holidays

Emergency, press and hold

17The emergency page

Four big buttons: Evacuate, Alert / Stand By, Lockdown and All Clear. Each asks you to confirm, then sounds its tone and spoken instruction on loop until you press STOP. Music, announcements and the planner are held meanwhile. On the iPhone you arm a button, then press and hold.

Emergency — one big button each.

18The announcer voice

Settings → Announcer voice picks the voice and speed used for calls, messages and promos. “Automatic” uses the best Australian voice on the iPad. For more voices — Lee (male) or the enhanced Karen — download them in iPad Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices → English → Australian; they appear in the list straight away.

19Kiosk mode

For an unattended iPad, turn on Guided Access (iPad Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access) and triple-click the button to lock Venue PA open. On iPadOS 26, also set Settings → Multitasking & Gestures → Full Screen Apps so it fills the screen.

20Backup and restore

Settings → Backup & Restore saves everything — hours and closed days, calls, messages, recordings, the planner, music plan and settings — to a single file you can keep in Files or iCloud Drive, and restore onto a new iPad.

21Trial and subscription

• The first 7 days are free with every feature unlocked.
• After that, Venue PA Monthly keeps the station running: one subscription on the iPad covers unlimited staff iPhones and the browser page.
• Subscribe any time — even during the trial — under Settings → Subscription. Manage or cancel in your Apple ID subscription settings. Moved to a new iPad? Use Restore Purchase.

22Getting help

Settings → Help & Feedback emails us directly. We read every message and we're happy to help with setup, hardware questions, or anything else.

Email: chrisc@reflectionsav.com.au

Quick troubleshooting