Use Show Manager for theatre

[arneB]

When programming the lightning for a theatre show with a chaser and Cue List, I still have the issue that when the light changes, I have to set up a new collection with all the other lights. This can be done by duplicating the collection, but when it is wanted to remove a scene from this collections, you have to change them by hand.
Another way to approach this problem that - as far as I know - hasn't been considered yet is using the Show Manager and create a track for each changing attribute. This can be done today only if the show is synchronized to a timeline, e. g. given by an audio or video file. However, if the duration of the scenes variates, you still have to create a Chaser, what creates the problem mentioned above. I suggest this Show Manager features in order to solve this problem:

• I would like the possibility to add a marker in the timeline of the Show Editor that pauses the Show when it is reached.
• Another option is adding the possibility to run the Show with an endless encoder like the big dial of the Behringer X-Touch One instead of a given timeline. This would be even greater if there was the possibility to create a text track in the Show where the text of the play can be uploaded from a .txt file.

Another feature that I think would make theatre workflow easier are tracks for sending MIDI which could be used for e. g. controlling the sound mixer.

[GGGss]

I still have the issue that when the light changes,

Please explain?

[arneB]

I still have the issue that when the light changes,

Please explain?

I'll give you an example:
The lightning for a show consists of the front lightning and lightning for the background.
In an act, the background lighting changes several times but the front lighting stays the same all the same.
The way I would realize this right now is by creating a scene for the front light and several scenes for the back lighting, connect them in collections and add these collections to a main chaser.
In every show, this chaser is played back using a cue list.
But if you need to change the scene for the foreground and can't simply change the front lighting scene because it is used all over the whole show, you need to replace it in every collection.
In the Show Editor, you could create a single track with the front lighting scene all over the whole act that could be replaced very fast.

[edogawa]

I almost never use collections and still get around with cuelists in theater. For your example I would create one scene with just frontlights, another one with front- and backlights, and put these into my cuelist chaser as often as I need them.
If for some reason I'd need a scene that shouldn't be affected from a change to one of the two I used above, I'd create a copy and place it at that point in the cuelist chaser.
If I can't tell beforehand how often I have to change between backlights on or off, I'd maybe put a scene with just the backlights on a button or fader outside the cuelist and use that manually, if wanted with the scene's fade time.
Or the other way around, create a look with what never should change, put that on a button or fader, and let the cuelist do all the rest.
There are several ways to get what you describe, the show would be the last thing to try, in my mind...