Note: The text below is extracted from my book, and is copyrighted.
WHAT ARE ENTERTAINMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS?
I use the rather unwieldy phrase “live entertainment control systems,” or just “entertainment control systems” to cover the control used for any element in the show environment; for example, the control signals used between a lighting-control console and a dimmer rack, the link between a computer and a number of audio amplifiers for monitoring and control, the data sent between a pyro controller and some flash pots, or anything else related to the field. I’ve included the word “live” here because I’m limiting discussion to systems, standards, and practices used to present some form of entertainment to a live audience. This is meant to include any live show or event including concerts, circus, theatre, theme parks, corporate meetings, special events, cruise ship shows, themed retail, location-based entertainment, and museum exhibits. This limitation is meant to exclude film, video, audio or other types of “nonlive” media production, post-production, or presentation.
WHAT IS SHOW CONTROL?
“Show control,” a much maligned and misused phrase, simply means connecting separate entertainment control systems together into a “meta system,” or system of systems. A computer controlling fog machines that regulate the amount of fog in a harbor scene doesn’t amount to show control; a system that links the control of the fog machine with an audio playback system, which generates maritime sound effects does. The signals sent between a lighting console and a group of dimmers is an entertainment control system, but it is not show control. If the lighting cues were triggered from a system that also took positional data from the moving scenery that was being lit, this would be show control. The key is that you don’t have a show control system unless control for more than one production element is linked together. So show control is part of entertainment control, but not all entertainment control is show
control.
