What is a show cue? Lighting, laser, and video cues explained

A show cue is a stored moment in a production, a specific look, movement, or trigger that fires at a specific point in the show. Every department that runs off a desk (lighting, lasers, video) builds its own list of cues, and each one gets called or triggered in order as the show plays. The word means slightly different things depending on which department you're standing next to, so it's worth breaking down.

What is a cue in lighting?

In lighting, a cue is a stored set of values, intensity, color, position, whatever attributes the fixtures have, that gets recalled when the cue fires. A lighting console like a grandMA3 stores cues into sequences, and each cue can carry its own fade time, delay, and trigger type. MA Lighting's own documentation puts it plainly: a cue "stores different values from fixture attributes" and includes information on how to transition into it. We cover the actual mechanics of building these in our guide to creating cues on a grandMA desk.

The lighting cue is usually the one people mean by default when they say "cue" without specifying, mostly because lighting desks have been the dominant show control tool the longest.

What is a cue in a laser show?

A laser cue works the same way conceptually, a discrete, triggerable segment of content, but it usually carries different information. Instead of fixture attributes, a laser cue might store a beam pattern, a graphic, a color sequence, or a full frame of animation content, played back from laser control software or a standalone DAC. Laser terminology has its own history here. The International Laser Display Association sets the technical standards the industry builds on, and manufacturer glossaries like Pangolin's laser show terminology guide are a good plain-language reference if you're new to how laser cues, DACs, and ILDA connections relate to each other.

The practical difference from lighting: a laser cue is often triggered live by an operator (sometimes called a laser jockey) reacting to the music in real time, rather than fired strictly off a pre-programmed list. Festival laser sets especially lean on this. Fixed cue points still matter for the big cinematic moments, but a lot of the in-between content gets triggered on feel.

What is a video cue?

A video cue triggers playback, a clip, a layer, a live camera feed, a generative visual, usually from a media server or software like Resolume or disguise. Increasingly, video cues live directly inside a lighting console's sequences rather than running from a totally separate system. TPi's coverage of the Dolly Dots anniversary tour is a solid real-world example: the production ran video content through Resolume, triggered by a grandMA3 with video and lighting cues integrated into the same main sequences, rather than two separate cue lists running in parallel.

That integration is becoming more common as consoles get better at treating video like just another fixture type. It's convenient for execution, but it also means video needs to be in the room (or at least in the plan) as early as lighting is, not bolted on after the lighting cues are already locked.

How are cues numbered and organized?

Each department numbers its own cues, usually in the order they fire, and stores them into a sequence or cue list specific to that department's console or software. Numbering conventions vary. Some designers number by song section, some by bar or timecode, some just sequentially with gaps left for additions. What matters more than the specific convention is that the numbering means something to the person using it under pressure during a live show.

The real complication is that lighting cue 12, laser cue 12, and video cue 12 usually have nothing to do with each other unless someone deliberately aligned them. That's fine as long as everyone knows it. It becomes a problem in rehearsal when someone calls a cue number out loud and two departments jump to different moments in the song. A good cue sheet template at least keeps one department's numbering consistent, even before you solve the cross-department version of this problem. The cross-department version needs something no console provides: one shared address for the music itself. That's the thinking behind EdiTour's beat-based timeline. Lighting keeps its numbering and lasers keep theirs, but when every department designs against the same beat grid, "the hit at beat 64" points at the same moment on every desk.

Where do cues come from before they hit a desk?

Cues don't start as console entries. They start as decisions: this moment needs a color change, this drop needs the lasers to hit full, this breakdown needs the video to cut to black. Those decisions come out of listening to the track closely enough to know where its structure and energy actually shift, then marking those moments before anyone opens lighting or laser software.

When each department marks up its own copy of the track separately, usually in its own spreadsheet or notes doc, you end up with cues that were designed in isolation and only line up by coincidence. A shared reference for where the moments actually are, built once and seen by everyone, is what makes cue numbers across departments actually mean something to each other.

Which points at the definition worth keeping from all of this: a cue has two lives. On a desk it's stored values, a frame of laser content, a clip trigger. Before that, it's a decision about a moment in the music. EdiTour is built for that first life of the cue, the decision, made on a collaborative timeline every department shares, so that when lighting, lasers, and video each translate the plan into their own consoles, they're all translating the same plan.

Once cues exist, they still need a final check from the person whose name is on the show. See how artists and DJs should review show cues before a tour for how that review should work.