Real-time Lighting System for Large Group Interaction

Lighting systems have historically been controlled by an individual or small group of human operators working together in real-time. Applications for real-time lighting control include theatre, concerts, dance performances, and dance parties such as raves. For the first three applications, changes in the lighting are usually designed to be triggered by premeditated actions of the performers on-stage. In those cases, control by a small number of operators is possible since they need only to pay attention to the relatively small number of performers in order to achieve the goals of the lighting design. In an environment such as a rave, the primary focus is a large number of people dancing together in an unpredictable way. In such a dynamic environment, control by human operators is not ideal, since it is difficult for a small group to follow changes in the movements of a large group, or to react quickly enough to sudden changes in group activity. This paper will present a system which makes it possible for large groups, such as dancers, to interact with the lighting system directly.