Show dictionary · Lighting
Followspot
Also: spot · truss spot
A followspot is a high-output spotlight operated by hand to follow a performer around the stage. The operator controls aim, beam size (iris), edge, color (boomerang frames), and intensity (douser), executing pickups on the caller’s cues.
In practice
Spot calling is its own protocol: "Spot one, standby pickup, center stage entrance, half body, frame 2... go." Operators ride truss chairs, catwalks, or front-of-house perches; long-throw spots at the back of an arena hold a five-foot circle on a moving singer through pure craft.
Remote-followspot systems now let one operator drive moving lights as spots via camera tracking, trading the ladder climb for a joystick station. The vocabulary and the calls survive intact; the chair just moved to the ground.
How you’ll hear it
"Spots one and two, standby pickup stage right in the vom... spots go, full body, frame three."
Related resources
Part of the eventools.io Show Dictionary, a free glossary of live event production terminology.