A theatre show

Running a theatre show usually comes down to one laptop, one fixed rig, and one person calling looks in the dark. In Relackout, that job fits on a single cue list: you build it once before the run, then spend the night pressing one button. This page doesn’t re-teach how a cue list, Live Control or Notes work — it walks through how they fit together on a real show night, using the “Theater Flow” cue list from the Cue lists guide as the running example.

The backbone of a show: one cue list

In Cue lists, you record a three-step list called Theater Flow straight off the live rig: Front 1–4 come up warm white, then all six PARs shift to blue, then every channel drops to black. That’s the whole shape of a scene change — a look, another look, and a blackout — and it’s exactly the shape of a scene or an act in a play. One list like this can carry an entire act; a longer play just means more steps in the same list, not a different tool.

Before curtain: Once mode

Not every cue in a show needs a human to call it. A single pre-show hit — the house lights fading as the auditorium goes quiet, or one flash as the curtain rises — fits a list set to Once mode: play it, and it runs its steps through one time and stops itself, with no second press needed. The Cue lists guide shows exactly how that mode behaves and how to switch a list into it. Keep this mode for the one-off moments; the backbone list that carries the rest of the show stays in the step-by-step mode below.

Through the scene: step-by-step with GO and Next

For the list that runs the actual scenes, you want Step-by-step mode instead — that’s what Theater Flow is set to. In this mode, nothing advances on its own: the operator presses GO to start the first look, then Next to call every look after it, one at a time, on cue from the stage. Each step’s own Fade (ms) decides how the change reads — fast for a jump cut, slow for something the audience shouldn’t notice happening — and a step’s Delay (s) can hold it a beat before the fade even starts. Called the wrong look too early? Back steps back to the previous one. None of this needs rebuilding on show night — it’s the same list, the same buttons, every performance.

Between acts and scene changes: blackout

A show needs two different kinds of dark, and Relackout gives you both.

• Planned, in the list: Theater Flow’s own last step is a blackout — every channel eased down over its own fade, on its own cue, right where the act ends. This is just another step in the list, called with Next like any other.
• Unplanned, instant: the Blackout button in Live Control cuts everything the moment you click it, regardless of what’s running — a dropped line, a late scene change, a technical problem. Press it again and the stage comes back exactly as it was; nothing about your cue list or its current step is disturbed.

Use the list’s own blackout step for the planned beat between acts, and keep the instant one in reach for everything you didn’t plan for.

Running the room: a worked run-through

Here’s Theater Flow, already built and sitting in Step-by-step mode, run start to finish exactly as it would on a show night — with the operator’s cue sheet on screen the whole time.

1. 1

   Open the Cue Stacks card on the home screen; select Theater Flow on the left.

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2. 2

   Click GO.

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3. 3

   Click Next.

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4. 4

   Click Next.

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5. 5

   Click the Back arrow in the top left; click the LIVE CONTROL card on the home screen.

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6. 6

   Click the Back arrow in the top left; click the Cue Stacks card; select Theater Flow on the left again (the selection doesn’t stay when you come back); click Pause. The output fades out over the current step’s fade (about 4 seconds here); only then does the status read Stopped.

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Notes for the operator: a cue sheet

That Notes box you just saw next to the fader is exactly this: a running order that lives better on screen than on a printed page taped to the desk. Show notes covers building a multi-page document with Notes — one page per act, with the cue numbers and a one-line reminder for each. Add it next to your scene and cue buttons on the live panel, and you flip between pages with a click, or with the arrow keys.

Optional: from backstage with a phone

If someone else is giving you the GO — a stage manager calling the show from the wings — Remote control from your phone lets their phone or tablet reach the same cue list over the venue’s Wi-Fi, no app install needed. Its Cue Transport screen has its own GO, Next and Pause, and a blackout icon of its own, so a second person can run the list, or hand it off mid-show, without touching your laptop. A one-operator show doesn’t need this at all — it’s there for when the calling and the console aren’t in the same hands.

A sample run of show

The same run-through, written out as a printable cue sheet:

Cue	What happens	Mode	Note
1	Front 1–4 come up warm white over 3 seconds	Step-by-step, GO	Curtain up
2	All six PARs cross to blue over 2 seconds	Step-by-step, Next	Scene change
3	Everything fades to black over 4 seconds, 2 seconds after the call	Step-by-step, Next	End of act — hold for the blackout before applause

The same three rows, written out like this, are what you’d put on a page in your Notes cue sheet. If you’d rather trigger cues from faders instead of a GO button — say, to bring a list in gradually under a scene rather than snapping to it — the Mixer Designer guide covers building a panel with cue faders, and Cue lists shows one in use.

What’s next

One cue list, called with GO and Next, a blackout built into its last step and another one always in reach, a cue sheet next to your buttons, and an optional phone backstage — that’s a full run of show. The scenarios section also covers setting up a full event night and everyday use in a bar or club; Live Control is the next deep dive if you haven’t read it yet.