Cues and the cue list

A cue is the smallest fireable unit in a show. It can play media, wait, control another cue, send OSC, or carry a set of actions.

Cue lifecycle

A typical cue moves through these states:

idle → standby → prewait → playing → postwait → complete
                              ↕
                            paused

State	Meaning
idle	The cue is inactive
standby	Loaded and ready
prewait	Counting down before the main activity
playing	Main cue activity is running
postwait	Main activity is done; post-wait is counting
paused	Cue clock and media are frozen
complete	The cue lifecycle has finished

GO and the playhead

GO fires the next cue indicated by the playhead. Clicking a cue selects it for the inspector but does not automatically move the playhead. The transport's NEXT line always summarises what GO will actually do.

Timing

Pre-wait

The delay between GO and the cue's main activity. On Cue Start fires at the beginning of the lifecycle; On Play waits for the media player to start.

Duration

The duration of Wait and control cues. For an action cue, effective duration is the latest end time of an On Cue Start, On Play, or At Time action.

Post-wait

The delay after the main activity and before the cue becomes complete.

Continue mode

Setting	Behaviour
None	The next cue waits for another GO
Auto-continue	The next cue fires immediately after this cue starts
Auto-follow	The next cue fires after this cue is fully complete

Use Auto-continue for parallel events and Auto-follow for playlists or timed chains.

Media play mode

Setting	Behaviour at media end
Play once & eject	Plays once and clears the output
Play once & hold	Plays once and holds the final frame
Loop	Repeats until stopped

An image is a resource used by a video cue and behaves like held media.

STOP, PAUSE, and PANIC

• Pause freezes the cue clock, media, and any finishing grace period.
• The first Stop may run On Cue Stop fades and wait for them.
• A second Stop on the same cue ends it immediately.
• Panic stops everything immediately and does not wait for actions.

See the complete cue type reference.