How are lights in concerts and festivals synced so precisely to the music and the artist. My question regards both the mechanical lights and the human operated ones like spotlights.
In: 8
There’s a booth where they’re hooked up to a controller (generally computer these days).
They have schedules for which lights are on at what times through the event. The computer handles this. If a light is supposed to move, it is handled by the controller. Based on the task schedule, the lights rotate or tilt.
In a lot of cases, the people onstage have to rehearse being at specific lights and staying with them as they move. The lights people have to practice getting it in sync with the performers, but the performers have to practice being in sync with the lights.
Often, lights do need to be manually controlled, but less often than you might expect with how good the computer stuff is these days.
Source: Worked as a stagehand part-time for part of my college years, now in IT. It was a cool job, but not something that I could expect to make a career out of.
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