Lighting booth

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A Lighting booth or sometimes Lighting box is a room found in many theatres, concert halls, and some school halls.

It is designed to allow lighting operators to be Front of House, and so able to see the performance, without being in the auditorium itself. This means that they are free to talk to their colleagues in the booth, and also the Stage management team and other crew members via the communications headset (or cans). A booth that is sealed to the auditorium also allows for noisier equipment to be used, in particular computers and computer-based lighting desks, which require built-in fans in order to work properly.

In some smaller theatres, and school halls lighting booths can sometimes be found above or at the side of the stage. This allows space at the back of the auditorium for more seating, or a better/larger foyer area. In older theatres, this is because before the advent of thyristor dimming and compact electronic control desks, there was a limit on the distance that controllers could be placed away from the dimmers.

A lighting booth may also contain a Prompt corner, Sound desk, one or more followspots, and one or more projectors. Under these circumstances, the room may be referred to simply as a Control room/box.

In some theatres, the lighting booth is actually part of a wider suite of rooms, allowing each of the technical elements of a production its own customised space. This is especially likely to be the case where a theatre produces performances which require live sound mixing rather than just pre-recorded effects, as a sound operator needs to be able to hear the sound in the auditorium, and so not be sealed from it as a lighting operator, followspot operator or projectionist might be.

In some theatres with one or more balconies, the followspots may be given their own room above the highest balcony, with the lighting booth typically lower down at the rear of the stalls or the first balcony.