Organising an event

Of all the entries in this list, über die Bühne gehen is the one an English speaker is most likely to misread, because it seems to describe somebody walking across a stage. What it describes is an undertaking being carried through from start to finish: Die Messe ist reibungslos über die Bühne gegangen means that the fair went off without a hitch. The phrase rarely stands on its own. It comes with a word that judges the outcome — reibungslos, glatt, ohne Zwischenfälle — and it left the theatre long ago: a merger, a wedding or an exam can go über die Bühne just as well as a concert can. Its active partner is etwas über die Bühne bringen, to get something done, often with the sense that it took some doing. For an organiser the phrase is the point of everything else on this page, which is what has to be in place before anybody can say it.