The ShowFile

House grew up in Chicago around the Warehouse (1977-1982), a members-only club whose crowd was initially Black gay men and women and, to some extent, Latinos, where Frankie Knuckles was resident; most historians agree the name comes from the club, with some debate. Techno was made in Detroit by young Black musicians led by Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, and its name was fixed by the 1988 UK compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit. Both grew from disco, funk and electro, and from New York club culture built by and for Black and Latino, largely gay, dancers.

Strictly, something narrower than electronic dance music. Electronic dance music has been an umbrella term since the 1980s; close to 2010 the US music industry promoted rave-related festivals as "EDM", and the label came to mean a pop-oriented, big-room festival sound. This guide uses "EDM" only for that US industry era.

Nobody knows. Merriam-Webster gives the origin as unknown, with a first known use in 1923 for a dark panel that blocked light from a film camera; "goes before optics" and similar acronyms are later backronyms, and "go-between" is only a possible guess.

PRO DJ LINK, introduced with the CDJ-2000 in 2009, connects players, mixer and rekordbox over Ethernet so one USB stick can feed every deck and the players can share beat and tempo data for sync and quantize. It does not carry audio, and more than two players need a network switch.

One DMX512 cable's worth of lighting control: 512 channels, each a value from 0 to 255, sent one way down a daisy chain of up to 32 devices and refreshed about 44 times a second. Big rigs need many universes, so they carry them over Ethernet with Art-Net or sACN.

Fog is a dense, visible cloud. Haze is a fine, near-invisible suspension whose job is to make light beams and laser lines show up in the air; it can also set off photoelectric smoke detectors, so it is agreed with the venue in advance.

Yes, above the Class IIIa limit of 5 mW visible, which covers almost every show laser. You need an FDA variance before the first show, audience scanning needs specific approval on top, and outdoor shows need an FAA review filed about 90 days ahead.

Pixel pitch is the distance in millimeters between pixel centers. Planar's rule of thumb is pitch times 10 equals comfortable viewing distance in feet, so a 3 mm wall looks good from about 30 feet, but manufacturers' formulas disagree widely.

LEDs are dimmed by pulsing them very fast, and a phone's rolling shutter catches different numbers of pulses on different rows of its sensor, which shows up as dark bands. Higher refresh rates and genlock reduce it.

Yes, in people with photosensitive epilepsy, roughly 3% of people with epilepsy. The UK's Epilepsy Society gives 3 to 30 flashes a second as the most common trigger range; the US Epilepsy Foundation says 5 to 30. The Epilepsy Society reports that the UK Health and Safety Executive recommends club strobes flash no more than four times a second, a recommendation rather than a law, and web and broadcast rules for video use three flashes a second.

No. They heat titanium-zirconium powder to around 560 C, and fire officials treat them as pyrotechnics that need permits, certified operators and clearance from anything combustible.

Aviation rules, which vary by country. In the US, drone shows fly under FAA waivers to the Part 107 rules, chiefly section 107.35, which normally limits one remote pilot to one aircraft, and section 107.39 for flight over people; the FAA aims to decide within 90 days. In the UK, swarms, flights close to crowds and flights above 120 meters need a Civil Aviation Authority authorization in the Specific category, assessed under UK SORA since 23 April 2025.

The World Health Organization recommends no more than 100 dB LAeq averaged over 15 minutes. Country limits vary, and the US has no federal audience limit; OSHA's 90 dBA limit covers workers only.

The venue's limiter caps the maximum level, so pushing the mixer into the red does not make the room louder. It only flattens and distorts the music, so keep headroom at every gain stage.

Through a deal with the promoter: a flat fee, a guarantee plus a percentage, a "versus" deal that pays a guarantee or a percentage, whichever is greater, or a percentage only, called a door deal. A deposit, often 50%, usually holds the date, and the rest is reconciled at settlement on the night. Whether the percentage is of gross or net matters more than the headline number.

It depends on the country and changes fast. As of October 2026: the Netherlands has funded drug checking since 1992, and services operate in Vienna and, under a special permit, at Portugal's Boom Festival; in the UK on-site checking needs a Home Office license, which The Loop received in May 2024; in Australia the ACT and Victoria run services and NSW funds festival testing, while Queensland banned it in September 2025. In the US, DanceSafe checks drugs at events with producers' consent, but promoters' fear of RAVE Act liability limits it.

The production manager owns the technical side of a show: the technical advance, vendors, crew calls and the production schedule. The tour manager, by contrast, owns the tour's money, schedule and people, including settlement with the promoter.

Mostly by working on crews rather than in classrooms. In the US most stagehands join an IATSE local, which asks for proof of experience and an exam in the craft; console makers such as MA Lighting run training courses that build skill but are not a license; schools such as Full Sail offer live event production degrees; and ETCP's Entertainment Electrician certification, for experienced electricians, requires 30 eligibility points earned mostly from logged work hours.