Live performance events including theater, music, dance, opera, use production equipment and services such as staging, scenery, mechanicals, sound, lighting, video, special effects, transport, packaging, communications, costume and makeup. They all share the same goal: to convince live audience members that there is no better place that they could be at the moment. This is achieved through establishing a bond between performer and audience.Live performance events tend to use visual scenery, lighting, costume amplification and a shorter history of visual projection and sound amplification reinforcement.

Live event visual amplification is the display of live and pre-recorded images as a part of a live stage event. Visual amplification began when films, projected onto a stage, added characters or background information to a production.

Well designed touring systems unload from the truck gently, roll easily into their stage location, connect to each other quickly. A well designed system includes duplicates of critical components and "field-replaceable" items such as cables, switches and fuses.