Concert Audience Controls A Spotlight

When your music career gets big, and you are touring with your band, add some concerted audience interaction to your concerts by letting the audience control a spotlight. All you need are a few thousand cheap wireless controllers, a receiver that sorts out the average [mode] input, and a remote controlled spotlight.

The audience can press buttons, each attempting to control the light, while the averager box puts out the median [sorry; mode] of all inputs. If the majority of the audience wants a white-hot focus on the lead singer's crotch, that's what they get. The guys who want to blind the drummer may get their chance later, if the safety guy lets them.

Other possibilities include letting the audience run the strobe lights, a bass drum or a howling applause machine. As long as some sort of average input makes the thing react, without destroying the show, the attendees can have fun and feel like part of the show. (Of course, some will be frustrated when they can't laser the bass player.)

Supplying the controllers could be expensive, but costs could be reduced in various ways. Renting and returning could be a pain, but selling or giving them only to regular attendees might work. Another option is to wrap the whole arena in a Faraday cage to prevent cell-phone use, then installing a buttload of receivers so the chumps can use their cell buttons . . . hmm, maybe not.