The Operator Box connects via PoE and outputs to HDMI, drawing from Follow-Me’s upgraded 4K network-based camera to deliver individualized feeds to each tracking operator. On productions tracking five, six, or more performers simultaneously, operators previously shared a single camera view cluttered with overlapping crosshairs. The new hardware eliminates that congestion.

When cameras are positioned 70 meters or more from the stage, performers can appear tiny on screen. The Operator Box lets operators zoom in on their specific target without losing positional accuracy — a significant improvement for long-throw camera placements common in arena and stadium productions.

The compact unit mounts on a desk or behind a monitor, with a colored LED on top matching the operator’s assigned performer for quick identification. Operators can annotate their screens, display target-specific data like intensity and Z offset, and receive cued instructions via a built-in messaging system — either individually or as broadcast messages to the full operator team.

The Operator Box works with Follow-Me’s existing 3D, DELTΔ, and TRACK-iT systems.

More information at follow-me.nl

What’s New in v3.3

The headline addition is the ability to set common parameters across multiple network devices in a single operation — a real time-saver when you’re commissioning a rig with dozens of nodes. The app can now also pull the latest firmware versions directly from TMB’s update server, so you’re no longer hunting for download links mid-show prep.

Two new right-click context menu options have been added for network devices: Copy IP Address and Open Web UI in Browser. Small quality-of-life additions, but exactly the kind of thing that saves steps when you’re deep in troubleshooting.

The fix list is solid. Copy/paste in the Network page is repaired. Device order in the Firmware Update window is now consistent. The DMX Generator no longer drops output rate when the window loses focus — that one was a problem. Universe and address display has been standardized to the Universe.Address format. Network device parameters are now locked when a device is offline, and Web UI windows that previously couldn’t be closed are fixed.

About ProPlex Manager

ProPlex Manager is the free companion software for TMB’s ProPlex IQ Ethernet-DMX node line — the rack-mount and portable data distribution hardware that’s become a standard fixture on touring and installation rigs. The software handles unified device management, batch firmware updates, RDM fixture control with full parameter support and live GET/SET counters, MVR patch import for automated addressing, a DMX viewer that monitors up to 100 universes simultaneously, and a built-in DMX generator for system testing over sACN, Art-Net, or USB-DMX.

ProPlex Manager v3.3 is available now as a free download for Windows and Mac OS at the link below. Questions go to TMB Tech Support at techsupport@tmb.com, or the TMB Forum at forum.tmb.com.

Download ProPlex Manager v3.3 | ProPlex Manager Software Page

The fixture uses an OSRAM Sirius HRI 310W PRO lamp to produce a tight 2-degree beam through a 6-inch glass lens. Color options run deep: CMY mixing joins a 14-position dichroic wheel (including CTO, CTB, and UV) plus an independent five-color filter that can layer on top of both systems.

The effects package includes 17 static gobos with four beam reducers, plus two rotating prisms — a 16-facet circular and 6-facet linear — that can stack for multiplied beam looks. A frost filter allows wash-style output when needed.

Three-phase pan and tilt motors handle the movement side, while control runs through DMX with RDM support. ADJ’s Aria X2 wireless system is built in for cable-free operation, remote management, and over-the-air firmware updates.

The IP65 rating protects against dust, moisture, and rain — standard for the Hydro line — making it suitable for festival stages, touring rigs, and permanent outdoor installations.

“With the Hydro Beam CMY we wanted to deliver a fixture that combines massive beam output, creative flexibility, and fast movement in a truly tour-ready IP65 package.”

Learn more by visiting adj.com

MONDAY, AUGUST 17

Elation Expands the Rebel Line with a Profile and a Beam Mover

Elation has been methodically building out the Rebel series since the line launched, and the two newest additions fill the most-requested gaps. The Rebel Profile brings the line’s IP65-rated outdoor build to the profile category with a serious 600W engine and a full theatrical effects package. The Rebel Dartz picks up where the DARTZ 360 left off — same compact beam format, four times the brightness, and the same weatherproof construction that’s become the Rebel… Read more

MONDAY, AUGUST 17

Conduit Is the Show-Network Course the Industry Has Needed for a While

Strange Fuel, based out of the Canadian Rockies, has built something the industry has quietly needed for years: a networking course specifically designed for entertainment technicians — not repackaged CompTIA prep with a lighting console shoehorned into slide 47. Conduit covers the full stack from signaling fundamentals through VLANs, multicast, IGMP, and spanning tree, with a direct throughline to show control protocols like sACN. The thing that sets it apart is a browser-based live network… Read more

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18

GDTF and MVR Expand Beyond Lighting, Eye Audio Integration

The consortium behind GDTF and MVR is pushing the open data standards into new territory, with audio sector integration on the roadmap and recent work making the formats compatible with Open Sound Control and OpenUSD. Seven years after launching the General Device Type Format, the founding group — Vectorworks, MA Lighting, and Robe — reports growing adoption across the industry. More than 60 manufacturers now contribute device files to GDTF Share, while 14 control platforms… Read more

TUESDAY, AUGUST 18

High End Systems Dataflash 5000: The Icon Gets an LED Engine and IP65 Rating

The Dataflash name is back, and this time ETC has replaced the xenon tube with a full LED engine. The High End Systems Dataflash 5000 puts out 52,000+ lumens from a variable-white LED center (3200–7500K) ringed by an RGB LED array — and with an IP65 rating, it’s cleared for outdoor stages and festival rigs where the original xenon-based unit never went. The original Dataflash AF1000 built its reputation on raw single-point punch — one… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19

4Wall New York Vendor Showcase and BBQ Returns to Moonachie This October

The 4Wall New York facility in Moonachie, NJ is throwing open its doors again for the annual Vendor Showcase & BBQ on October 29, 2026, running 3–8 pm. If you’ve been before, you know the drill: hands-on demos from top manufacturers, a room full of industry faces, and Brian Dowd behind the grill turning out the kind of BBQ that people genuinely plan their calendar around. Expect a solid floor of manufacturer demos covering the… Read more

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19

LDI 2026 Registration Open: Early Bird Pricing Runs Through October 16

LDI 2026 opens registration with early bird pricing still on the table through October 16 — the show runs December 6–8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center West Hall, with Pro Training kicking off as early as December 2. The LDInnovation Conference anchors the education program with 100+ sessions and 100+ speakers spanning concert touring, media servers, rigging, stage management, and more. Conference access is bundled into most paid passes. Why do you want to… Read more

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20

Q-SYS — The AV Platform That’s Running More of Your Venues Than You Might Think

If you’ve done a load-in at a performing arts center, a theater, a casino, a theme park, or a convention center in the last decade, there’s a decent chance Q-SYS was running under the hood. It’s one of those platforms that’s everywhere in installed environments, and yet the lighting side of the industry tends to look right past it — because it doesn’t live on a console, doesn’t speak DMX natively, and doesn’t have a… Read more

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20

Vectorworks 2026 Update 6 Tightens Up Spotlight, ConnectCAD, and Project Sharing

Vectorworks has pushed out Update 6 for its 2026 product line, delivering targeted performance and interoperability improvements across its entertainment, architecture, and landscape toolsets. For Spotlight users, this one is worth grabbing. What’s in Update 6 The headliner for entertainment users is a batch of Spotlight fixes that address real-world show file pain points. Truss deletion is faster, the Spotlight Numbering dialog behaves more intuitively, and tagging and annotation of lighting and cable objects is… Read more

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21

Learn the grandMA 3 from A Pro Online at the Sandbox Institute

Aria Hailey, founder of Sandbox Institute Lighting programmer Aria Hailey has launched Sandbox Institute, a grandMA3-focused online training platform built around real-world workflows rather than button-by-button feature lists. Hailey has been building her reputation as a grandMA3 educator for years through her YouTube channel, where she goes by Aria On The Run. She started running lights at church at 13, went on to study lighting design formally, interned with ACT Entertainment in Los Angeles, and… Read more

FRIDAY, AUGUST 21

Truck Packer Is the Load-Planning App Touring Shops Have Needed

If you’ve ever spent two hours doing math on a whiteboard trying to figure out how to fit a tour’s worth of gear into three semis, Truck Packer was built for you. It’s a browser-based 3D load-planning tool designed specifically for production — touring companies, warehouses, rental shops — and it’s already being used by a growing number of crews to cut load-out planning time dramatically. The core idea is straightforward: input your cases (dimensions,… Read more

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22

Designing with Light Hits Its 8th Edition — Gillette and McNamara’s Essential Stage Lighting Text Gets a Full Refresh

Nearly five decades since it first landed on university syllabi, Designing with Light: An Introduction to Stage Lighting is now in its eighth edition — updated by J. Michael Gillette and co-author Michael McNamara to reflect the technology and industry that today’s students and working designers actually walk into. The book first appeared in 1978 from Mayfield Publishing, when dimmer racks still ran analog control and computer lighting was a concept, not a given. It… Read more

If you’re still managing your event crew with a spreadsheet and a prayer, CrewBrain wants a word. The web-based crew management platform is purpose-built for the event industry — handling personnel scheduling, availability tracking, time recording, vehicle management, freelancer coordination, and payroll statements in a single system that everyone on your team can access from anywhere.

What It Does

The core of CrewBrain is personnel planning: building a roster for a show, sending automated availability requests, and letting crew confirm or decline directly through the platform or mobile app. Conflict detection is built in — double-bookings and scheduling gaps surface before they become problems. Availability is tracked in real time across permanent staff, part-timers, and freelancers in one view.

Beyond scheduling, CrewBrain handles time recording with flexitime support, automated payroll statements based on flat rates, daily rates, or hourly wages, travel expense tracking with receipt capture, fleet management with driver’s log and certificate tracking, risk assessments, task management, and holiday approvals. Statistics and an AI data warehouse let you pull custom reports via chat — no SQL required.

The platform also includes CrewBee, an AI assistant baked directly into the system that answers questions about projects, jobs, and master data without any external setup.

Integrations

This is where CrewBrain separates itself. The platform connects directly to twelve rental and event management systems so order data flows in automatically — no double entry. Pre-built integrations include Rentman, Flex, Current RMS, easyjob (Protonic), HireHop, IntelliEvent, Epirent, Eventworx, MouseClick, Bankettprofi, easyJOB (Because Software), and Jobtura. Some of those — Current RMS, easyjob, and easyJOB — support write-back, meaning crew booking and resource status, hours worked, and leave data flow back into the source system automatically.

For calendar infrastructure, Office 365 connects bidirectionally via Microsoft Graph: CrewBrain dates land in Outlook, and changes sync both ways. iCal feeds handle everything else. And for shops running custom or less common systems, CrewBrain exposes a fully documented REST API (v1 and v2) with webhooks, plus an MCP server for AI client integrations including locally hosted models.

Who It’s For

CrewBrain is used across event technology, touring, production companies, hospitality, and venue management — currently more than 45,600 users across 24 countries, with 4.45 million events planned through the platform. The dark mode, which they specifically note is there because their users work in dark environments during shows, is a small but telling detail about who they built this for.

A 30-day free trial is available at crewbrain.com.

Nearly five decades since it first landed on university syllabi, Designing with Light: An Introduction to Stage Lighting is now in its eighth edition — updated by J. Michael Gillette and co-author Michael McNamara to reflect the technology and industry that today’s students and working designers actually walk into.

The book first appeared in 1978 from Mayfield Publishing, when dimmer racks still ran analog control and computer lighting was a concept, not a given. It has tracked the industry through every major shift — moving lights, DMX, LED sources, digital control — growing and adapting across eight editions while holding its position as the dominant stage lighting textbook at the college level. The 8th edition, published in January 2025 by Routledge, is the most current version of what has been, for most working theatrical LDs, the book they learned the craft from.

This edition is fully updated to cover current fixture technology — LED tape, modern control boards, dimmer architecture, cabling — alongside the fundamentals of electrical theory, drafting light plots, and designing for different stage configurations. It also expands coverage of dramas, musicals, and dance with real design examples, includes perspectives from working designers across theatrical and related industries, and reflects a shift toward more inclusive language and practice. For instructors who have been running older editions, the technology sections alone make the update worth it — this isn’t a light revision.

Who Wrote It

J. Michael Gillette is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of Arizona, where he spent 33 years teaching stage lighting, media lighting, scenic design, sound design, and technical production. Over that career he designed more than a hundred productions. He is also the author of Theatrical Design and Production, another widely-used classroom reference. Gillette is the originating author of Designing with Light — the book has been with him since the first edition in 1978, growing through his professional and academic life alongside the industry itself.

Michael McNamara is Associate Professor of Theatre at Purdue University and has taught theatrical lighting at the graduate and undergraduate levels for more than 20 years. He came into the book from the working world first: eight years as Resident Assistant Lighting Designer with the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, with credits on over 50 productions alongside design teams from around the world. His professional credits extend to the Canadian Opera Company, the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv, the San Diego Opera, the Dallas Opera, and assistant design work at the Royal Opera in London, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Portland opera companies. In the Chicago theater scene he has designed at First Folio Theatre — where he’s an Artistic Associate and earned the 2012 Joseph Jefferson Award for Lighting Design for The Turn of the Screw — along with Remy Bumppo, Writers’ Theatre, Shattered Globe, and others. McNamara holds an MFA in Stage Design from Northwestern University, a BS in Theatre Arts from Carroll University, and is a member of United Scenic Artists Local USA-829, the Illuminating Engineering Society, and USITT, where he received the 2017 Founders’ Award. He came on as co-author with the sixth edition and has been steering the technology updates since.

Pick it up on Amazon or directly from Routledge.

The core idea is straightforward: input your cases (dimensions, weight, stack rules, packing groups), point it at a trailer or container, and let AutoPack generate candidate layouts before anyone touches a strap. You get a 3D view, a few layout options to compare, and a crew view checklist you can share with the loading dock. Packs that reportedly used to take a couple of hours wrap in under thirty minutes.

The app supports trailers, box trucks, shipping containers, air ULDs, and custom spaces — you define the geometry yourself, so it reflects your actual rigs. Cases can be imported via CSV or XLSX, and the manufacturer library lets you pull in dimensions from a growing list of touring case makers rather than measuring everything by hand. There’s also a LiDAR/AR companion iOS app (Cargo Measure, currently in closed beta) that measures real cases with an iPhone Pro and pushes them straight into your library.

Version 0.10, released August 12, is the biggest update since launch. Business-tier accounts now get multi-truck packing — one plan covers the full fleet instead of a separate pack per truck. Also new: a full container library with ready-made presets for US and EU road trailers, air ULDs, rail cars, and rental trucks; a redesigned library browser; a Loading Dock inspector; and per-container PDF exports and crew views.

Key Features

• Browser-based 3D packing environment — no install required
• AutoPack: one-click layout generation with multiple candidate outputs
• CSV/XLSX import and manufacturer case presets library
• Multi-truck packing (Business tier) — one pack for the whole fleet
• Container library: trailers, box trucks, containers, air ULDs, rail cars
• Stagera integration: pull sheets push directly into Truck Packer
• Cargo Measure AR iOS app (beta): LiDAR case measurement to library
• Crew View with load-in checklist, truck ruler, and shareable links
• PDF export with custom branding (Business tier)
• REST API and real-time collaborative packs (Business tier)

Learn more about Truck Packer by visiting truckpacker.com.

Lighting programmer Aria Hailey has launched Sandbox Institute, a grandMA3-focused online training platform built around real-world workflows rather than button-by-button feature lists.

Hailey has been building her reputation as a grandMA3 educator for years through her YouTube channel, where she goes by Aria On The Run. She started running lights at church at 13, went on to study lighting design formally, interned with ACT Entertainment in Los Angeles, and spent five years doing MA tech support — a stint that gave her an unusually deep understanding of the system by forcing her to teach it and troubleshoot it constantly. She now works as a freelance programmer and uses Sandbox Institute as the formal home for her course catalog.

The platform currently offers the grandMA3 Pixel Programming Workflow course, priced at $149. The course covers large-scale pixel system workflows from initial planning and MVR import through groups, selections, phasers, generators, and recipe-based programming — structured for programmers working in theater, television, ceremonies, and live events who need systems that hold up when real-world conditions change mid-show.

Alongside the courses, Hailey maintains an active free resource library on YouTube at @ariaontherun, where she has amassed over 5,500 subscribers and 258 videos. Her Phaser Friday series — a 30-video playlist of short-to-medium format tutorials focused entirely on building specific phasers in MA3 — has become a go-to reference for programmers looking to expand their phaser library quickly. Titles in the series range from zoom flyouts and pannerfalls to thunderstorm effects, paparazzi flashes, and marquee chases, with many landing in the 3–5 minute range that makes them easy to reference on the job. She also posts Shorts regularly, with quick-hit tips that can be absorbed in under a minute.

The combination of free YouTube content and structured paid coursework positions Sandbox Institute squarely in the growing space of industry-specific technical training — practical, practitioner-built, and aimed at working programmers rather than students.

The Sandbox Institute is at sandboxinstitute.com.

What’s in Update 6

The headliner for entertainment users is a batch of Spotlight fixes that address real-world show file pain points. Truss deletion is faster, the Spotlight Numbering dialog behaves more intuitively, and tagging and annotation of lighting and cable objects is more reliable — all things that matter when you’re working inside a large, complex show file and can’t afford slowdowns or surprises.

Cable routing logic has been cleaned up significantly. Power Patch Selected now consistently routes cables along truss, pipe, or cable paths. Daisy-chained cable runs follow truss corners correctly when using modifier keys, so you’re no longer getting cable lines that cut straight across corners. MVR imports from Depence now correctly apply updated patch and fixture data, and Spotlight numbering icons reflect the actual numbering order without the risk of application freezes from specific character combinations.

ConnectCAD also gets attention: more predictable equipment and circuit visualization, better display of custom 3D symbols, and reliable propagation of default circuit graphics in project sharing environments.

Across all verticals, project sharing stability is improved — fewer unexpected checkout alerts and more dependable behavior in multi-user sessions. The update also introduces a new partnership with Architextures, giving users access to high-quality, manufacturer-specific textures directly inside Vectorworks.

Update 6 is available now. Existing Vectorworks 2026 subscribers and Service Select members can download it from the Vectorworks customer portal.

If you’ve done a load-in at a performing arts center, a theater, a casino, a theme park, or a convention center in the last decade, there’s a decent chance Q-SYS was running under the hood. It’s one of those platforms that’s everywhere in installed environments, and yet the lighting side of the industry tends to look right past it — because it doesn’t live on a console, doesn’t speak DMX natively, and doesn’t have a flashy fixture attached to it. But for anyone working in venues where the audio, video, and lighting systems need to talk to each other, Q-SYS is worth understanding.

Q-SYS is QSC’s full-stack AV platform — audio DSP, video distribution, and control all running on the same operating system, processed through a dedicated Core hardware unit. Think of it less like a piece of gear and more like a venue’s central nervous system. The Core handles signal processing, routing, automation logic, and device control from a single platform, which is why system integrators love it: fewer boxes, fewer points of failure, one programming environment. The hardware scales from the compact Core Nano for small rooms all the way up to the enterprise-class Core 5200 for large-scale installs with heavy processing demands.

Where You’ll Find It

The footprint is broader than most people realize. Performing arts centers use it as the backbone that ties house audio, stage monitoring, and room control together. Broadway houses and regional theaters run it to manage complex multi-room audio environments with cue-triggered recall. Cruise ships use it fleet-wide — QSC’s hospitality vertical is massive, and a single ship might have dozens of Q-SYS zones from the main theater to the pool deck bars. Theme parks and themed entertainment installations lean on it for the kind of synchronized, scene-triggered playback that rides and walk-through experiences require: fire the sound effect, trigger the lighting cue, advance the show automation — all from one platform. Convention centers and arenas run it for paging, background music, and room combining. Houses of worship use it for their distributed audio and multi-campus sync. Airports and transit hubs use it for wide-area public address. And corporate environments run it everywhere from boardrooms to all-hands spaces, often alongside Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom hardware that Q-SYS is certified to integrate natively.

Why Lighting People Should Care

Here’s where it gets relevant for this audience: Q-SYS has a full control engine built into the OS. It supports OSC, TCP/IP, serial (RS-232), IR, and GPIO — and a plugin ecosystem through Q-SYS Library that extends control to hundreds of third-party devices. That plugin list includes a Lighting category. ETC has a Q-SYS plugin for Paradigm architectural control. CueServer integrates natively. DMX-over-sACN output is achievable via third-party plugins. In practice, what this means is that in many venues, Q-SYS is the system that fires lighting cues. Not the console — Q-SYS. A show control trigger from the Q-SYS system tells the lighting rig to go to a scene, tells the media server to advance a cue, and fades the house audio simultaneously. If you’ve ever been on a load-in where the venue’s “room control” system also controls your lighting presets, there’s a good chance Q-SYS was in the middle of it.

How You Program It

Q-SYS Designer is the software where all of this gets built — a drag-and-drop design environment that runs on Windows or Mac and connects to the Core hardware for programming and deployment. It supports three levels of workflow: no-code drag-and-drop for native Q-SYS devices and approved plugins, a block-based logic controller for mid-complexity automation (originally developed with Google and MIT), and full Lua scripting for anything that needs custom logic or complex API integration. User Control Interfaces — the touchscreen panels and web-based control pages that end users actually interact with — are also built in Designer and pushed to Q-SYS native touchscreens, iPads, or any browser on the network. On the management side, Q-SYS Reflect is their cloud monitoring layer: facilities teams can watch system health, receive alerts, and manage configurations across multiple venues from a browser, which matters a lot when you’re running twenty hotels or a multi-campus university.

It’s not a lighting console. It won’t replace your MA3 or your EOS. But in the venues where Q-SYS is installed — which is increasingly most of the permanent installs worth doing — it’s the layer that everything else talks to. Understanding what it is and how it integrates with lighting and media systems makes you a significantly more useful person on a complex production. Learn more at qsys.com.