If you’ve ever stepped into a theatre aboard a major cruise ship, you might not realise the level of technical orchestration working behind the scenes to deliver a seamless show. But for Ed Lewis of Total Control Inc. (TCI), that’s exactly the point.
For years, TCI has been working with leading cruise operators to make complex theatre systems feel intuitive for non-technical staff. And at the heart of that mission? Medialon by 7thSense show control solutions.
“We’ve been working in cruise ship theatres for a long time,” says Ed. “Once we started using Medialon as part of the automation and control system, I told our clients that we could make something really special for them with the tech.”
The challenge: Broadway ambitions, cruise ship realities
Unlike a Broadway theatre with dedicated crews for every technical role, cruise ship theatres operate under very different conditions. There’s less time, fewer staff, and the people running the shows often aren’t traditional theatre technicians.
“There were two main problems we needed to solve for show control for onboard theatres,” Ed explains. “First, everything that canbe automated needs to be automated. There’s no time or crew for manual button-hitting during shows. Second, most of the staff running these systems aren’t computer code-savvy. They’re talented but not trained coders or engineers.”
Traditional show control interfaces such as complex timelines, scripting, and programming, were a non-starter. The system needs to be powerful under the hood, but friendly on the surface.
The solution: Medialon made simple
Medialon is known for its flexibility and powerful control capabilities, but Ed saw the potential to go a step further – to create a completely custom graphical user interface (GUI) designed specifically for cruise ship operations. Using Medialon Showmaster LE and a custom-built web interface, TCI developed a system that allows even first-time users to take full control of the theatre environment.
The result? A show control system that looks simple… deceptively simple… but is capable of running a full show from start to finish.
At the core is the Show Page, where users see a straightforward list of cues. Each cue might turn on a projector, send a command to the lighting board, adjust the audio, or switch a video destination in the router. But rather than learning how to script or drag-and-drop items on a timeline, users just click a button marked ‘Create Cue’.
That opens the Cue Creation Page. A visual interface filled with labelled buttons ‘Power On’, ‘Shutter Close’, ‘Set Fade Time’, and more. Want a cue to trigger automatically? Choose between manual, wait-based, or timecode-based triggers, with precise frame control to sync with the show. It’s that easy. Whatever is selected is highlighted in red and is included in the cue.
“It’s all designed to feel intuitive,” says Ed. “End users with absolutely no experience can create their own cues, build a show, and run it - without ever touching code.”
Scheduling without sleep
Beyond live show control, Ed also designed a Scheduling Page. Another custom GUI that simplifies early morning setups for events, tour loads, and pre-show configurations.
“Some mornings, there’s a 6am tour load. Instead of having a technician show up that early after working past midnight the night before, the system can pre-configure everything: lights, microphones, video projectors. It’s all ready to go,” says Ed. “You just pick a date or day of the week and time in advance. The theatre is ready, even if the crew’s still asleep.”
Front-end simplicity, back-end power
While the interface is clean and minimal, the system architecture is anything but basic. It runs on Medialon Showmaster LE, accessed via a WebPanel on a local computer in the theatre's lighting booth. Control is mostly via mouse, prioritising simplicity and reliability for the end user.
Under the hood, this is still Medialon with all the robustness, flexibility, and real-time control that high-end venues demand.
“Nothing comes close to what Medialon can do,” Ed says. “It lets us make something extremely powerful appear incredibly simple. That’s the magic.”
What TCI has created with Medialon is more than a show control system - it’s a toolkit for theatre crews to build their own shows, their own cues, and their own confidence in running professional shows at sea.
It’s also scalable. A similar application developed by TCI is in use at Stepping Stones Museum in Connecticut, proof that this intuitive approach to show control can benefit any venue where technical staff are limited or where ease of use is paramount.
TCI x Medialon Show Control Cruise Ship Theatre Solution Highlights
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A model for the future
Onboard theatres are now a model of how thoughtful integration of show control technology can simplify operations without sacrificing performance. TCI’s custom Medialon interfaces are running daily on dozens of state-of-the-art cruise liners, helping crews deliver top-tier productions and experiences without the need for an army of technicians.
“Medialon gave us the flexibility to build exactly what our clients need,” says Ed. “And what they needed was something that just works. Simply.”