Despite the growing convergence of audio, video and lighting systems, live production still operates according to a clear technological pecking order when reliability is at stake. For Lanz Short, global director of solution design at Disguise, sound remains the number one priority, with lighting in second place, while video is still viewed as the most expendable aspect. “Sound is the number one vital element in a show. If the audio glitches, it’s really going to have an impact,” he says. “Lighting comes second as if a single light glitches, you’re not really going to notice. And video is another layer on top of that. If you see people cutting budgets for shows, they’re quite likely to cut the video first.”
But that hierarchy is gradually changing as video and lighting force their way more to the forefront of creative live shows. In fact, it is video technology – specifically the real-time rendering that also drives immersive game environments – that is now remaking how lighting works, and in the process transforming how AVL systems are designed and run.
The shift is still in its early stages. While media servers have long handled video as a dynamic, generative medium, lighting has traditionally been pre-programmed and largely fixed. But real-time rendering is starting to change that, Short says. He describes one scenario to illustrate the shift. “Utilising realistic ray-traced lighting in real-time engines allows you to apply that to lights in a new way that’s never been done before in real time,” he says. “You could have a real-time setup of the environment outside a theatre, mimicking the sun’s position from the real world and transferring that onto the scene inside – as the clouds change, it could change the real-time renderer to mimic that.”
DISSOLVING BOUNDARIES
Wouter Verlinden, product manager for creative LED, lighting and control at Martin Professional, sees the same boundaries dissolving from a fixture and control perspective. Martin’s P3 system, which already allows luminaires and video surfaces to be addressed within a unified visual framework, is increasingly being used to treat lighting as a media surface in its own right. A recent installation at the Venetian Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas demonstrates the scale now being realised. Verlinden describes how about 400 Martin VDO Sceptron XB fixtures formed a “flowing ribbed ceiling”, addressed as a single video canvas via P3, with gradients and video content moving across the installation in synchronisation with LED displays. “Real-time rendering and interactive content are blurring the boundaries between lighting and video,” he argues. “With video integration built into Martin’s ecosystem through P3, lighting can be treated as part of a media surface, allowing content to be mapped seamlessly across luminaires and video elements.”
A similar argument is presented by Alexis Reymond, CSO at Naostage. Reymond says the shift to responsive, generative lighting radically changes the nature of lighting design. “In this paradigm, lighting is no longer reactive or pre-programmed – it becomes part of a responsive environment that evolves with performers, audiences or data inputs. This fundamentally reshapes the relationship between lighting and video, turning both into dynamic contributors to a shared narrative space.”
INTEGRATOR REALITY
Undoubtedly, the creative possibilities of AVL convergence are expanding, but the operational realities of delivering the projects remain demanding. Laura Green, director of systems and integration at Kinetic Lighting – the Los Angeles-based integrator behind the Martin exterior installation that was featured in our the first of our AVL special reports (Installation, May 2026) – explains where she thinks the friction originates in practice. Although the disciplines still operate largely independently throughout most of a project’s lifecycle, she believes the overlap occurs right at the outset of the planning process.
“The overlap is most visible at the control and network layers, but it originates in the creative brief,” she says. “Clients now expect immersive environments where a video transition automatically shifts the room’s colour palette and audio spatialisation. To deliver that, the infrastructure relies on a shared network backbone. We’re seeing a massive shift toward lighting control protocols coexisting on the same managed switches, requiring a much higher level of VLAN management and bandwidth planning than in the past.”
The risk is that decisions made in isolation create problems that are difficult to resolve later on in the process. Green says friction commonly occurs when one department makes a change after the initial design, but before final commissioning, that unintentionally breaks something for another department. “The best way to manage this is to continue coordination throughout the construction phases. Success requires a project manager who understands that a change in the lighting system can have a direct ripple effect on the video and audio side of the project,” she says.
The skill sets required on AVL projects are also shifting as roles are reshaped. The traditional skills of a programmer, Green observes, are becoming inadequate for the demands of integrated projects: “A lighting programmer can no longer just understand DMX; they need a deep grasp of networking, IP management, and how lighting interacts with media servers. Conversely, video engineers now find themselves managing lighting data. This has created a greater need for the systems integrator, who understands the handshake between these protocols.”
Green also emphasises the structural barriers that persist beyond the technical challenges. She says the greatest obstacles remain split budgets and a lack of protocol standardisation: “On the client side, funding is often divided between different departments or stakeholders, which makes it difficult to plan for a unified infrastructure from a single budget. From a technical standpoint, while we have common languages like Art-Net or sACN, every manufacturer has their own way of implementing their API. Until there is more consistency in how these devices talk to one another natively, we are still essentially taking three separate specialties and forcing them to communicate through custom programming.”
PLATFORM THINKING
Manufacturers are increasingly trying to address some of the technical, and also operational, challenges at the platform level. Gabriel Alonso Calvillo, senior product manager integrated systems at Adam Hall Group, describes how the company’s QUESTRA control platform was built with interoperability as a core design goal from the outset. “On the software side, QUESTRA offers a dedicated logic environment where users can create network command nodes supporting TCP, UDP, HTTP and OSC protocols,” he says. “Integrators can group these command nodes into reusable ‘user nodes’ representing a complete third-party device – these can be exported, shared and further developed. Our vision is to expand this into a library of officially verified virtual devices within QUESTRA, complete with predefined control menus tailored to real-world integration needs.”
Calvillo also explains how the company’s decision to choose OSC as a default third-party control protocol for upcoming networked devices within the Adam Hall Group – across the LD Systems, Cameo and Palmer brands – reflects a deliberate alignment with the AVL industry’s broader direction. “Within the Adam Hall Group, we work closely across brands to align technologies, control protocols and integration strategies,” he says. “This cross-brand collaboration allows us to anticipate trends, ensure compatibility and develop products that fit naturally into converged AVL workflows rather than attempting to connect them retroactively.”
One of the most debated questions in the AVL convergence space is about the future of the dedicated lighting desk, the hardware console used to programme and control stage lighting. Several interviewees still believe that in live performances it has an intuitive, spontaneous quality that software environments have not yet managed to replicate. Short says this dimension of the desk won’t go away, but he is also critical of the lighting industry’s failure to advance. “The lighting world hasn’t evolved that much. It’s quite a traditional workflow, the same as 50 years ago– still lights with a desk.”
Full integration will come, he believes, but the instinctive, physical quality of live operation is irreplaceable: “Busking a gig – you’re feeling the energy of the crowd, feeling the energy of the band. You still need that tactile interface. What needs to change is the software underneath it. Why are the lighting companies leaving it to the media servers to do the real-time side? Maybe they should be building real-time engines to control lights a little bit more.”
Nobody interviewed here doubts the advantages of moving towards greater AVL integration. Verlinden says that a unified AVL approach simplifies the control environment, reduces the need for separate systems and operators, and improves consistency across an installation: “For venues, this means faster setup times, more efficient programming and reduced training requirements.”
Joel Mulpeter, senior director of product marketing at Crestron, takes a similarly practical view. He argues that the logic of integration applies as much to lighting control as to any other system in a building: “All of these disciplines – audio, video, and lighting – need to be integrated properly to achieve the most effective and reliable results.”
FUTURE PREDICTIONS
Naostage’s Reymond makes a useful prediction that two scenarios for the use of lighting will coexist. “Lighting control will increasingly integrate into broader AV and show-control platforms, especially in installations and immersive environments,” he says.
“But dedicated lighting systems will continue to play a distinct and essential role, particularly in live performance contexts where precision, reliability and artistic control remain paramount. The future is not about replacement, but intelligent coexistence within a unified ecosystem.”
AI is part of the AVL conversation, but interviewees resist overhyping its potential. Short acknowledges that it is already part of the Disguise platform’s integrations, but he is sceptical about how far autonomous AI control of lighting can go in the near term. His reasoning is as much related to public safety as aesthetics: “It’s got a long way to go to get those nuances of human emotion. You really wouldn’t want to lose control of your lights to AI totally – if you accidentally strobed a room too much, people couldn’t see. It would have to know those limitations.”
It’s clear that there is more evolution to come in this converging technology stack. The infrastructure and creative ambition are there, while the necessary tools – such as media servers, real-time engines, shared IP networks, and unified control platforms – are maturing rapidly. But there is a way to go in more human terms: budget structures, project management and collaborative practices. As Reymond puts it: “By reducing system fragmentation, teams spend less time managing complexity and more time focusing on the experience itself.”
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