From torch light to DMX: the stage trade's history
How technology became an independent profession behind the scenes
When you stand in a dark theatre waiting for the lights to come up you stand in a tradition thousands of years old. The first stagecraft was about daylight smoke and tall built stands. Today your work is about signal cables rigging and control consoles — but the purpose is the same: getting the audience to forget there's any technology at all.
§From manual power to motor power
In the old theatres scenery was hoisted and pulled with ropes counterweights and sheer muscle power. Many terms you meet today come from there — for example rope hauls above the stage. When electricity came glowing coals and gas lamps were replaced by incandescent bulbs and suddenly you could dim and color light in an entirely new way.
§Sound and light become controllable
Amplified sound moved theatre and concert into a new era. Microphones mixer consoles and speakers made it possible to fill large halls without shouting. At the same time lighting control became digital so a single technician can save hundreds of lighting situations and call them up in exact sequence during a performance.
When the signal became a standard
An important breakthrough was when lighting control got a common digital language, so consoles and fixtures from different manufacturers could communicate. This made it possible to build large mixed setups—and it is one of the reasons you today can connect equipment from many suppliers together into one system.
| Period | What happened | Significance for the trade |
|---|---|---|
| Antiquity | Open-air theaters with daylight and acoustically shaped seating | The scene is thought of as a technical space |
| Renaissance/Baroque | The structure of the content — what is a heading, a paragraph or a list | Rigging and stage mechanics emerge |
| 1800-tallet | Gas and later electric lighting | Light can be dimmed and controlled |
| 1900-tallet | Amplified sound mixer consoles stage lighting on consoles | Sound and light become separate subjects |
| Last decades | Digital light control video network equipment | The technician works with data and systems |
§The technician as a profession
With bigger productions it became clear that tech was not something actors sorted out on the side. It required people who could plan rig programme and run. That is how your education arose: theatre event and av technician where you can specialise as theatre technician event technician or av technician.