Best practices as house when hosting touring production's lighting network

[AramGraz]

Hi all,

I'm a newer head electrician at a PAC that does a good amount of in house productions, but also hosts for touring companies at least once a month. Typically we get things like comedians or podcasts that don't have many technical needs but a few times a year we get bands or tours that have their own lighting packages. Historically, we've set up a 4 port dmx input node to allow them to have control of the venue lights they need, and we do AIP on our side (we're an ETC house with sACN). Recently we've upgraded a lot of equipment to LED and intelligent lights and are hitting limitations with fitting everything into 4 DMX ports. Last week I had a tour directly connect to our sACN network and things went well, but in speaking with the tour LD he seemed skeptical of that approach.

With that said, how do you typically handle this type of situation? are other venues keeping strictly to DMX input? If not, what protocols do you have about hooking other networks in to your system? Do you typically have their network priority match yours? higher? lower? Do tours have certain expectations from the house when this happens? What do you do when your universe footprint overlaps with yours? Would you expect the tour to adjust their network to fit or would the house? is there a range of universes you would expect a tour to use?

I'm mostly just looking to see what other venues do in order to make life as easy as possible for me and the touring LDs, and try to avoid learning some lessons the hard way about dealing with these situations.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rob]

Ha. Very timely post. Just this week I shot this video which is a detailed description of how our eLink is being used to reduce a large rig into manageable numbers.

More on eLink here including more videos and explainers on how it’s used as a guest console on-ramp and keeps touring rigs segregated from house rigs.

 

[AramGraz]

Very interesting Rob. This would definitely alleviate some of the worry of connecting touring rigs into our network. This may be outside our budget for the next year but will be added to the wishlist. Do you see tours typically expecting something like this when they come in instead of direct access? I'm guessing this would also remove the need to reconfigure network addressing, since the elink can just output sACN data that it receives?

 

[Rob]

eLink is becoming very popular for all the reasons you've asked. In years gone by, the touring act would just call for house lights and an operator would run one fader to half, then to out. This was typically necessary as the house lights were rarely DMX. As the world evolved, it was simple enough to allow the guest console to drive the one or two channels of house lights.

Now the world has moved to 3 or 4 colour LEDs and LOTS of them to light all the architectural elements and it's no longer just a few slots of control. And do you really want them to run a chasing rainbow all over your frescos? Likely not. You generally want to boil it down to white light and colour accents.

And there is still a use-case where they may want to use your balcony rail fixtures and dimmers, but you don't want them driving your cyc because nobody has changed the gel in four years and if they turned them on all we'd smell is burning dust.

So to answer : "Do you see tours typically expecting something like this when they come in instead of direct access?" I'd say it's rather to YOUR benifit and what you allow them access to. It's your house. You don't want all their MA-Net and Hog-Net traffic on your network. Just give them the keys to the back door - not the run of the house.

 

[SteveB]

sACN is likely the go-to if getting a network signal, as opposed to trying to have the visiting desk send DMX. The advantage to the DMX into your nodes approach is it gives you control over what addresses the tour desk accesses. We would, as example, not give control of house lighting, that stayed on our Unison system for exclusive house control. Our management was never happy giving control of house and works to a tour system. That goes away when you have them send sACN and relies on the tour console op. to be conversant and cooperative in how they patch. Adding in LED and any kind of mover obviously requires it be networked as you’ve already experienced the issue of 4 DMX universes being insufficiant.

 

[AramGraz]

Thanks Steve, that's essentially where we are now. We have a Mosaic system that has a separate touch panel to control house and works, but unfortunately those addresses are in DMX universe 2 for the console. We don't give the tours the addresses for those fixtures but it creates a worry that if they don't clean up their show file they may inadvertently leave some of those addresses patched from a previous stop. Everything worked as intended with the last tour using sACN, but I'm hoping to see what everyone else is doing for these situations to make sure I'm on the right track.

 

[Footer]

I've spec'd an 8 port node at FOH in our new system just for this... and starting to ponder what that looks like. Good beginning of a discussion. Networking works but I do want the DMX for fallback. Just like tieing into racks and stacks... AES is great, but analog always works.

 

[techieman33]

We typically do whatever the tour is comfortable with. If they want to send us sACN that's fine, and if they want to give us copper we just drop a node next to their console. We keep out consoles powered off to make sure there aren't any weird priority issues.

 

[Crisp image]

I have found that touring companies that are touring a lighting package are using universes starting over 4 so from 5 up. Our house uses universe 1-4 so any other patching they need to do in 5 and above. They connect to our switch and then patch in our FOH andd overhead rig as required. We tend to leave HLX out of the equation.

 

[danTt]

I'm hesitant to network in to a house system because I don't want to play chase-the-conflicting-ips all day. I'm hesistant to let road shows network in for the same reason, unless I feel like both parties have a good understanding of networking and how their house infrastructure is setup.

For some things, like houselights, you can map sacn input to your console and let the road show drive them with a single address. If I'm going to transfer a big rig, I'll probably put my stuff outside of the etc recommended IPs, (or offset the last octet by 100), and offset my universes the same way. Most of it's going to come down to advancing properly though, and understanding your rig enough to adjust whatever needs to be adjusted on the day.

 

[TLadd]

Everyone has some great ideas and great perspectives on this topic. Many thanks!! There are certainly lots of different ways to manage handing off (and merging) DMX Channels and entire DMX Universes to a secondary console, architectural system or some other source. Choosing what is right for your venue largely depends on a few simple factors.

• How secure - Do you want/need to manage and prevent the secondary source from making a mistake and controlling something you had asked them not to. Do you trust them?
• How much - A few channels or 4+ universes like AramGraz is running into
• Venue Infrastructure - DMX only or is there a Network backbone. DMX systems have very limited flexibility, you just give them your line and tell them where to patch stuff.

In a Network based system, It would be ideal to just hand a guest control system a DMX cable or Network cable that was pre-configured to only allow them access to discrete DMX devices or just certain Universes. Injecting their DMX into a Gateway that mounts the data onto a sACN network is the first easy way to do this. sACN is a great protocol as it allows for universe priorities unlike ArtNet. So the guest console signal can be given a different priority than the house system or leave it the same for HTP. Or the guest console could be given a completely different sACN universe that the venue merges only a few channels from into your house system's universe. Pathway's and ETC's advance mapping and per-slot priority system makes this happen. The later is slightly more secure because the Gateways remove DMX slots you don't wish them to operate regardless if they try to patch them.

Handing a guest console a Network cable is a completely new can of worms. You are essentially giving them the keys to the kingdom where their configuration on their equipment, that you can't touch, can access everything. Not to mention the game of IP addresses that danTt has eluded to. If you have a very small system it should not be an issue, but if you have tons of universes, internet, audio, and who knows what else on your network, all can be adversely effected by what they have on their network leaking over to yours. As Rob has mentioned above, Pathway has released a hardware solution to help bridge two networks, the eLINK Router. This device is amazing. First off, it has two Network ports on it that are completely isolated. Only the venue's Ethernet Port allows for the management of the device and the secondary port can be given what ever IP address the guest system wants to use. After that this unit is amazing at digesting sACN, ArtNet, ShowNET and Pathport DMX protocols (all at the same time if you like) and mapping them to your venue's sACN universes anyway you wish, including adding blocks on certain slots and changing priorities. The guest system might be using Universe 1 in their rig and you are also using universe 1 too. Just have the venue send you universe 546 and you can selectively map it, per slot, back down into your universe 1. It's easy and done with the free Pathway Pathscape Config software.

I hope this adds value to this thread...and of course, I work for Pathway too like Rob, but we both still work in live venues and promote products that we ourselves use to solve these real problems

Thomas Ladd
Business Development Director
Pathway Connectivity Solutions

 

[Footer]

I'm hesitant to network in to a house system because I don't want to play chase-the-conflicting-ips all day. I'm hesistant to let road shows network in for the same reason, unless I feel like both parties have a good understanding of networking and how their house infrastructure is setup.

For some things, like houselights, you can map sacn input to your console and let the road show drive them with a single address. If I'm going to transfer a big rig, I'll probably put my stuff outside of the etc recommended IPs, (or offset the last octet by 100), and offset my universes the same way. Most of it's going to come down to advancing properly though, and understanding your rig enough to adjust whatever needs to be adjusted on the day.

Ya thats my hesitation with it too. In our new system both rooms will be on one network with common architecture controls. Lobby, stair lights, work lights, etc will be on the network too. So allowing full access to the network for a roadco just doesn't sound great.

 

[NJLX]

I'd also like to note that the Cisco switches in ETC installed projects can be configured to block/allow any sACN universes, either individually or in ranges, on any physical network port.(good for multiple spaces on one network, or for blocking all except specific universes from a tour's input port).

Luminex switches and gateways also have advanced features that can help in this situation, much like Pathway's eLink unit. I don't have specific details because I've only demo'd them, not actually used them for a show. I believe you would have the ability to have the tour output sACN on an arbitrary universe of their choice, and translate that to the appropriate sACN/DMX on the house side - though this is obviously additional work, much like ETC's AIP.

 

[Rob]

Ya thats my hesitation with it too. In our new system both rooms will be on one network with common architecture controls. Lobby, stair lights, work lights, etc will be on the network too. So allowing full access to the network for a roadco just doesn't sound great.

eLink aside, Pathway ssACN (described here)
is ideal in PACs with multiple rooms. Each security domain firewalls all config and DMX to the specific room, but visibility (and those with network rights) can see the whole building.

 

[ChrisB_SanDiego]

You ask some interesting questions. I was a house tech for 15 years, now I do more design and consultation. On average, we had around 60-80 touring L.D.'s per year, for concerts, live TV broadcast, church conferences, business conferences, political conventions, a few high profile memorials, etc. That's too many hands in the pot if I gave them all network access, we also had multiple in house productions and turn around was too high to risk allowing changes in the house.

The simple question is what do they actually need access to.

There's a lot of venues out there that don't allow any access to anything in their plot, so touring L.D.'s are typically pretty grateful for anything you let them have. Most of the time, they want access to your house lights, any on stage panels and front light, especially spots. Houses spend a lot of time creating good even washes, with isolated spots. If an LD doesnt have to pull theirs off the truck, many of them absolutely love that.
They are typically ok if the house tech wants to run house as long as it's in occordance to their show. Most touring L.D.'s are good with any restrictions the house has, as long as you tell them in advance.

As a rule, I only allowed access to conventionals and house. Since our house lights were LED, it was 4 universes. I gave them a 4 port node and that was the rule. I'm in California, so I can't expect a touring LD to follow whatever random rule was added, as it related to stairway, egress and emergency lighting. The house always controlled that. Our contract was consistant and it stated these terms, along with our grid load limits, and the company switches so the tour always new upfront what was available long before they came.

Generally speaking, as the house, you have a higher liability. Letting a tour direct access to your network is too big of a risk. Many of the schools I work with have their sACN network tied into the entire network, I'm not condoning it, it's just how a lot of them are. Same with hotel's, convention centers and even a few theme parks.

Many of the concert and church venues, the lighting and audio network are shared but physically isolated from any other network. Generally speaking, a tour doesn't need access to that. If you let them into the audio network, they can disable limiters on your amps, potentially causing physical damage to the house gear, the tour will be long gone before you realize there was an issue; and the insurance company likely won't cover it since you allowed them in the network. On the lighting side, they can change your racks, dimmers to non-dims or vise versa.

Your loyalty should lay with the house. As they say in hacking, physical access is game over. Don't let them in your network unless you have a real reason to give them access to everything. If you aren't skilled in networking and know how to put it back for the next event, don't give them access.

Now, that being said, let me give you a couple of technical points I've learned the hard way should you want to share your network:

• Always keep a copy of your current Concert config. It goes a long way to reset the system, if something changes. You might get a day off and someone gets a bright idea.
  • Keep these on multiple thumb drives
  • includes the config files, screenshots of your rack setups and a spreadsheet of your racks patch and each modules configurations.
• Keep multiple copies of your ETC arch controllers config on a USB thumb drive.
  • I have found Gorrila to be the best brand as they have a basic firmware that seems to be compatible with everything.
• If you have touch panels and preset stations, you should have lockable covers for them to prevent interupting the show.
• If you are running house while the touring LD is in the network, ONLY patch what you intend to control during that show. Delete everything else.
  • this will save you a lot of headaches.
• Consider using a network surge protector
  • if the backline is on the company switch, FOH is on building mains, and then your on the lighting grid, you can get some interesting issues.
    • It's an easy way to kill a Dante or MADI card.
    • It's also not worthing sacrificing your network if touring board glitches.
• MA and ETC Consoles do not play well together via sACN (ETC architecture is fine)
  • Use as many nodes as you have to but dont run an ETC console in series with MA
• MA3 is trash, dont let it in your building. (over 600 official pages of bug fixes and counting)
  • running it in MA2 mode is fine.
• If running multiple live consoles, set them at the same priority and in HTP mode
• Keep any backups systems at a low priority (10)
  • Do not enable "backup takes over at higher priority"
    • You will sit in blackout for a while trying to figure out why.... pst... It's probably because the rackmount backup unit the touring LD brought, took over
    • Or it could be the Green Hippo media server, the video, or projections speciallist brought.
• Keep RDM off. Let the LD use RDM for setup only and then turn it off, but don't enable it on your side.
  • RDM coming from multiple sources.... just no. dont do it.
• sACN viewer in EOS is pretty cool for viewing multiple sources, keep it open in a window during the gig. It'll tell you who has control over what fixture.
  • even if you don't have an ETC console, just have it up on a laptop running nomad is worth the price of the dongle for keeping the client happy.
• Casino Rules: The house always wins.
  • If your patch is the same as the incoming tour, the tour changes. Chances are they already had to change it multiple times throughout the tour already.
    • And many of them are masters at their console, it's a simple thing to slide their whole patch somewhere else.

 

[SteveB]

Obviously, just having the tour desk send upwards of 4 universes of DMX to a port the house provides! with Advanced Input Patch allowing control over stuff like house and works, is the cleanest and easiest setup. Problems develop as the OP noted if the need is for more than 4 universes, maybe driven by a house FOH rig that is all Lustrs. So 10 addresses per fixture minimum, and now you might potentially be needing more then what a 4 port node can handle. Thus the sACN conundrum and what software does what AIP does ?

 

[TimMc]

You ask some interesting questions. I was a house tech for 15 years, now I do more design and consultation. On average, we had around 60-80 touring L.D.'s per year, for concerts, live TV broadcast, church conferences, business conferences, political conventions, a few high profile memorials, etc. That's too many hands in the pot if I gave them all network access, we also had multiple in house productions and turn around was too high to risk allowing changes in the house.

The simple question is what do they actually need access to.

There's a lot of venues out there that don't allow any access to anything in their plot, so touring L.D.'s are typically pretty grateful for anything you let them have. Most of the time, they want access to your house lights, any on stage panels and front light, especially spots. Houses spend a lot of time creating good even washes, with isolated spots. If an LD doesnt have to pull theirs off the truck, many of them absolutely love that.
They are typically ok if the house tech wants to run house as long as it's in occordance to their show. Most touring L.D.'s are good with any restrictions the house has, as long as you tell them in advance.

As a rule, I only allowed access to conventionals and house. Since our house lights were LED, it was 4 universes. I gave them a 4 port node and that was the rule. I'm in California, so I can't expect a touring LD to follow whatever random rule was added, as it related to stairway, egress and emergency lighting. The house always controlled that. Our contract was consistant and it stated these terms, along with our grid load limits, and the company switches so the tour always new upfront what was available long before they came.

Generally speaking, as the house, you have a higher liability. Letting a tour direct access to your network is too big of a risk. Many of the schools I work with have their sACN network tied into the entire network, I'm not condoning it, it's just how a lot of them are. Same with hotel's, convention centers and even a few theme parks.

Many of the concert and church venues, the lighting and audio network are shared but physically isolated from any other network. Generally speaking, a tour doesn't need access to that. If you let them into the audio network, they can disable limiters on your amps, potentially causing physical damage to the house gear, the tour will be long gone before you realize there was an issue; and the insurance company likely won't cover it since you allowed them in the network. On the lighting side, they can change your racks, dimmers to non-dims or vise versa.

Your loyalty should lay with the house. As they say in hacking, physical access is game over. Don't let them in your network unless you have a real reason to give them access to everything. If you aren't skilled in networking and know how to put it back for the next event, don't give them access.

Now, that being said, let me give you a couple of technical points I've learned the hard way should you want to share your network:

• Always keep a copy of your current Concert config. It goes a long way to reset the system, if something changes. You might get a day off and someone gets a bright idea.
  • Keep these on multiple thumb drives
  • includes the config files, screenshots of your rack setups and a spreadsheet of your racks patch and each modules configurations.
• Keep multiple copies of your ETC arch controllers config on a USB thumb drive.
  • I have found Gorrila to be the best brand as they have a basic firmware that seems to be compatible with everything.
• If you have touch panels and preset stations, you should have lockable covers for them to prevent interupting the show.
• If you are running house while the touring LD is in the network, ONLY patch what you intend to control during that show. Delete everything else.
  • this will save you a lot of headaches.
• Consider using a network surge protector
  • if the backline is on the company switch, FOH is on building mains, and then your on the lighting grid, you can get some interesting issues.
    • It's an easy way to kill a Dante or MADI card.
    • It's also not worthing sacrificing your network if touring board glitches.
• MA and ETC Consoles do not play well together via sACN (ETC architecture is fine)
  • Use as many nodes as you have to but dont run an ETC console in series with MA
• MA3 is trash, dont let it in your building. (over 600 official pages of bug fixes and counting)
  • running it in MA2 mode is fine.
• If running multiple live consoles, set them at the same priority and in HTP mode
• Keep any backups systems at a low priority (10)
  • Do not enable "backup takes over at higher priority"
    • You will sit in blackout for a while trying to figure out why.... pst... It's probably because the rackmount backup unit the touring LD brought, took over
    • Or it could be the Green Hippo media server, the video, or projections speciallist brought.
• Keep RDM off. Let the LD use RDM for setup only and then turn it off, but don't enable it on your side.
  • RDM coming from multiple sources.... just no. dont do it.
• sACN viewer in EOS is pretty cool for viewing multiple sources, keep it open in a window during the gig. It'll tell you who has control over what fixture.
  • even if you don't have an ETC console, just have it up on a laptop running nomad is worth the price of the dongle for keeping the client happy.
• Casino Rules: The house always wins.
  • If your patch is the same as the incoming tour, the tour changes. Chances are they already had to change it multiple times throughout the tour already.
    • And many of them are masters at their console, it's a simple thing to slide their whole patch somewhere else.

The tl;dr - Treat your show networks with the same level of security and access control that would be used for box office, administration, payroll and HR. IOW, implement Networking Best Practices as if the entire existence of the facility depends on it.

DMX? Whatever, so long as it is not part of emergency or life safety use. I include house lights in this. There is no reason for a visiting show to have direct control over house lights, aisle or stairway lights, lobby or other architectural lighting. In an ideal world these would be separate systems to start with, but...

 

[danTt]

You ask some interesting questions. I was a house tech for 15 years, now I do more design and consultation. On average, we had around 60-80 touring L.D.'s per year, for concerts, live TV broadcast, church conferences, business conferences, political conventions, a few high profile memorials, etc. That's too many hands in the pot if I gave them all network access, we also had multiple in house productions and turn around was too high to risk allowing changes in the house.

The simple question is what do they actually need access to.

There's a lot of venues out there that don't allow any access to anything in their plot, so touring L.D.'s are typically pretty grateful for anything you let them have. Most of the time, they want access to your house lights, any on stage panels and front light, especially spots. Houses spend a lot of time creating good even washes, with isolated spots. If an LD doesnt have to pull theirs off the truck, many of them absolutely love that.
They are typically ok if the house tech wants to run house as long as it's in occordance to their show. Most touring L.D.'s are good with any restrictions the house has, as long as you tell them in advance.

As a rule, I only allowed access to conventionals and house. Since our house lights were LED, it was 4 universes. I gave them a 4 port node and that was the rule. I'm in California, so I can't expect a touring LD to follow whatever random rule was added, as it related to stairway, egress and emergency lighting. The house always controlled that. Our contract was consistant and it stated these terms, along with our grid load limits, and the company switches so the tour always new upfront what was available long before they came.

Generally speaking, as the house, you have a higher liability. Letting a tour direct access to your network is too big of a risk. Many of the schools I work with have their sACN network tied into the entire network, I'm not condoning it, it's just how a lot of them are. Same with hotel's, convention centers and even a few theme parks.

Many of the concert and church venues, the lighting and audio network are shared but physically isolated from any other network. Generally speaking, a tour doesn't need access to that. If you let them into the audio network, they can disable limiters on your amps, potentially causing physical damage to the house gear, the tour will be long gone before you realize there was an issue; and the insurance company likely won't cover it since you allowed them in the network. On the lighting side, they can change your racks, dimmers to non-dims or vise versa.

Your loyalty should lay with the house. As they say in hacking, physical access is game over. Don't let them in your network unless you have a real reason to give them access to everything. If you aren't skilled in networking and know how to put it back for the next event, don't give them access.

Now, that being said, let me give you a couple of technical points I've learned the hard way should you want to share your network:

• Always keep a copy of your current Concert config. It goes a long way to reset the system, if something changes. You might get a day off and someone gets a bright idea.
  • Keep these on multiple thumb drives
  • includes the config files, screenshots of your rack setups and a spreadsheet of your racks patch and each modules configurations.
• Keep multiple copies of your ETC arch controllers config on a USB thumb drive.
  • I have found Gorrila to be the best brand as they have a basic firmware that seems to be compatible with everything.
• If you have touch panels and preset stations, you should have lockable covers for them to prevent interupting the show.
• If you are running house while the touring LD is in the network, ONLY patch what you intend to control during that show. Delete everything else.
  • this will save you a lot of headaches.
• Consider using a network surge protector
  • if the backline is on the company switch, FOH is on building mains, and then your on the lighting grid, you can get some interesting issues.
    • It's an easy way to kill a Dante or MADI card.
    • It's also not worthing sacrificing your network if touring board glitches.
• MA and ETC Consoles do not play well together via sACN (ETC architecture is fine)
  • Use as many nodes as you have to but dont run an ETC console in series with MA
• MA3 is trash, dont let it in your building. (over 600 official pages of bug fixes and counting)
  • running it in MA2 mode is fine.
• If running multiple live consoles, set them at the same priority and in HTP mode
• Keep any backups systems at a low priority (10)
  • Do not enable "backup takes over at higher priority"
    • You will sit in blackout for a while trying to figure out why.... pst... It's probably because the rackmount backup unit the touring LD brought, took over
    • Or it could be the Green Hippo media server, the video, or projections speciallist brought.
• Keep RDM off. Let the LD use RDM for setup only and then turn it off, but don't enable it on your side.
  • RDM coming from multiple sources.... just no. dont do it.
• sACN viewer in EOS is pretty cool for viewing multiple sources, keep it open in a window during the gig. It'll tell you who has control over what fixture.
  • even if you don't have an ETC console, just have it up on a laptop running nomad is worth the price of the dongle for keeping the client happy.
• Casino Rules: The house always wins.
  • If your patch is the same as the incoming tour, the tour changes. Chances are they already had to change it multiple times throughout the tour already.
    • And many of them are masters at their console, it's a simple thing to slide their whole patch somewhere else.

You have a lot of really good points here.

I'm going to address one aspect of it, with a potentially incendiary statement.

If you're a house tech in a venue relying heavily on networked distribution, and you're not able to troubleshoot/change/manage/understand the way the infrastructure works, you're not qualified for your job.

None of these things are novelties anymore. It would be like walking into a counterweight house with a flyman who only used hemp,.

 

[AnthonyS]

I'd also like to note that the Cisco switches in ETC installed projects can be configured to block/allow any sACN universes, either individually or in ranges, on any physical network port.(good for multiple spaces on one network, or for blocking all except specific universes from a tour's input port).

Luminex switches and gateways also have advanced features that can help in this situation, much like Pathway's eLink unit. I don't have specific details because I've only demo'd them, not actually used them for a show. I believe you would have the ability to have the tour output sACN on an arbitrary universe of their choice, and translate that to the appropriate sACN/DMX on the house side - though this is obviously additional work, much like ETC's AIP.

You are correct on the Luminex side. I was an LD at a few rather large houses of worship with tours and shows coming in and out that used house system with their own floor package. Had them output starting at sACN 1001, brought that into the Luminode process engine and had my options to LTP/HTP, or in some cases have it switch between who has control (controlled by the house console). Super handy, very easy to do.

 

[AnthonyS]

Ya thats my hesitation with it too. In our new system both rooms will be on one network with common architecture controls. Lobby, stair lights, work lights, etc will be on the network too. So allowing full access to the network for a roadco just doesn't sound great.

That hesitation can actually go away once you start using vlans and separating out your “network inputs” and “network outputs”. Luminex with the Lumicore is how I have solved this at a few installs. Because of the process engines that Luminex has, the Lumicore adds the ability to have vlan based input and outputs for the process engines. So it removes the possibility of IP conflicts, and still gives the house full control of what the guests can control, and even when they can control it. Even outside of the install world, I have used it on festivals, which have rotating consoles at FOH, and a few others. Made my life easy as the network lighting tech .