Multi-Campus Programming

So I have a thought that Im exploring and wanted to know how you guys think it would effect performance of vista. We have 7 campuses that need programming for, and in the spirit of organization and easy, Id like to build One master show file that all the campuses could merge from. My problem is that most campuses don’t even come close to having the same fixtures or set ups.

My thought of doing this is can I use one master programming file and have every campus have a universe or multiple? So for example,

Campus 1: Universe 1-8
Campus 2: Universe 9-10
Campus 3: Universe 11
Campus 4: Universe 12
Campus 5: Universe 13
Campus 6: Universe 14-15
Campus 7: Universe 16

Then in the showfile, I could have separate Layouts for each campus. Each campus could then come in and import the Cuelist of the song and run it at their campus.

My questions are:
Is this going to slow down our main campus programing file?
Is this even possible?
Do you know any better way of doing this?

Thank you for helping me out.

1 Like

You will need to check the vista statistics for each location, even though you aren’t sending information to each universe vista based on the computer will show you how many universes you can run on each machine.
My opinion would be that it is not a great ideal, I have the same situation 4 locations I’m programming for, I have each location bring their Mac mini back to main location and I program from there!

So how are you programming at the main location? Using a visualizer? Or are you just programming off DMX value and light position? I’m in a similar situation and have a basic plan to move forward and write lights for all locations for consistency. Obviously all lighting and rooms aren’t the same. Before I poor significant funds into my plan I’d love to know what others are doing. Thanks for the thoughts!

How are you planning on getting around the channel limit at each site? Unless you’re saving 7 separate files from the master and then unpatching all the other universes on each one, which I guess is an option.

Look at the Merge feature. Starting with V3, you can merge elements from specific shows into another show. You could program cues, cuelists and presets on one then export to the others; you would then only have to update your presets on each rig to make it work. I think presets will be your friend here because if every look you want can be built from them, then you can update at each site and everything will look like it was programmed at that location.

You might even be able to train your volunteers to check this, if you trust them enough. This is what I’m planning on moving to doing for our 10 rooms if I can figure out the logistics of it.