What TAIT LightStrike Actually Does
Everyone in live entertainment has heard the name. Most people don't know what it does. Here's the plain-language version — what LightStrike is, what problems it solves, and why it matters to your show.
The one-sentence version
LightStrike takes position data from moving scenery and turns it into something your lighting console can use. That's it. That's the whole product.
But that one sentence contains a surprising amount of magic.
The problem it solves
Imagine a performer flying on an automation rig. They're moving through space — up, down, across the stage — on a track controlled by TAIT Navigator or another automation system. The automation system knows exactly where that performer is. It has to — it's driving the winch.
Your lighting console does not know where that performer is. Your console knows channel numbers, intensity levels, pan/tilt values. It has no concept of "the performer is 14 feet stage left and 22 feet in the air."
So how does the light follow the performer?
Traditionally: a followspot operator watches and chases. Or a programmer writes dozens of cues timed to match the automation sequence, hoping the timing holds night after night.
LightStrike is the bridge. It reads the position data that already exists inside the automation system and translates it into coordinates your lighting console can consume. The light follows the performer because it's reading the same math as the winch.
It's not a tracking system
This is the most common misconception. LightStrike is not BlackTrax. It's not Zactrack. It doesn't put sensors on performers or cameras in the rig. It doesn't detect where people are.
It reads where scenery is — from the automation system that's already moving it — and converts that into lighting data. The position information already exists. LightStrike's job is translation.
That said, LightStrike can also ingest data from tracking systems that do use sensors. If your show has Robert Juliat SpotMe outputting PosiStageNet data, or a Zactrack system outputting performer positions, LightStrike can take that data in and route it to your console alongside the automation data. It becomes the central hub where all your position sources meet.
What it looks like in practice
On The Lost Boys on Broadway, performers fly on Flying by Foy lines. LightStrike reads the encoder positions from Navigator — linear data along the track — and applies formulas to convert those into X/Y/Z stage coordinates the Eos console can use. When a performer launches into a flying sequence, the moving lights follow them through the air on the same math that's driving the winch. No followspot operator chasing. No stack of timed cues drifting out of sync. One system, one source of truth.
On Millions at the Alliance Theatre, we used LightStrike for something completely different. A Creative Conners turntable rotated set pieces through the stage picture, and the design called for light locked to specific points on the surface, to follow those specific set pieces. Instead of programming cue after cue to compensate for rotation — light here at 90 degrees, light there at 180 degrees, light somewhere else at 270 — we mapped a coordinate to the turntable surface. Follow the actor. The turntable spins, the light holds. What would have been dozens of lighting cues became one.
Same show, we also tracked the trim positions of automated light ladders. Every time a ladder shifted height, LightStrike knew where it was — which meant our fixtures knew where they were. We could even report clearance data back to the automation operators: your scenery is clear of our lighting positions. Go.
Two shows, same software, completely different problems. That's the point.
Why it matters to a designer
If you're a lighting designer, here's what LightStrike gives you: the ability to say "follow this" instead of "program a cue for every position this thing will ever be in."
Follow the performer in the air. Follow the turntable. Follow the wagon. Follow the light ladder. The automation system already knows where everything is. LightStrike just lets your lights and console know too.
The result is lighting that feels locked to the scenery — architectural, not reactive. When it works well, nobody in the audience thinks about tracking. They just see a show where the light is always in the right place.
Why it matters to a production manager
It's a force multiplier on programming time. Scenes with heavy automation movement are traditionally some of the most cue-intensive moments to program — every position change needs a corresponding lighting adjustment. LightStrike collapses that. Your programmer builds the integration once, and the system handles the per-position math in real time.
It also reduces the risk of drift. Timed cues can slip. An automation sequence that runs two seconds sooner on a Wednesday matinee means your lighting cues land in the wrong place. LightStrike follows the actual position, not a timestamp. The light is correct because the math is correct, every performance.
The bigger picture
LightStrike sits in a growing category of translation and integration platforms — software that takes position data from one system and makes it useful to another. Stage Precision does similar work in broadcast and virtual production contexts. The category exists because modern shows have more moving parts than ever, and the departments that control those moving parts (automation, lighting, video, audio) all need to read from the same positional source of truth.
We design tracking stacks around these platforms. If your show has scenery that moves and lighting that needs to follow it, this is the conversation to have in pre-production — not in tech.