EXPOSED
Rigging truss, running cable, hanging and focusing fixtures, and troubleshooting a dimmer that dies ten minutes before curtain are physical tasks no current robot performs on a live set. The real threat isn't a machine taking the ladder — it's demand: automated moving lights and pre-visualization software already shrink crew counts, and generative video plus LED volume workflows shift some work off the physical stage entirely. Console programming and paperwork (plots, hookups, magic sheets) are the parts AI touches first.
Headcount grew steadily across the period.
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
-4.6%
Percentage only. The projection counts a different population from the 8,900 above — it includes self-employed workers, which for this occupation is most of them, so the two headcounts are not comparable.
Shrinking, but not obviously because of AI
The BLS projects -4.6% by 2034, but at 56/100 this work is only moderately exposed — not the profile of a job current AI can simply do. Occupations shrink for many reasons, and the score does not point at automation as this one's cause.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~800 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
GafferStagehandLamp OperatorLighting DesignerLighting EngineerLighting OperatorStage ElectricianSpotlight OperatorTheater TechnicianLighting SpecialistDimmer Board OperatorProduction TechnicianStage Lighting TechnicianVideo Lighting TechnicianEntertainment ProfessionalLighting Controls TechnicianLight Technician (Light Tech)Stage Technician (Stage Tech)Entertainment Lighting TechnicianControls Technician (Controls Tech)Lighting Technician (Lighting Tech)Electrical Lighting Technician (ELT)Set Lighting Technician (Set Lighting Tech)Rigging Electrical Lighting Technician (RELT)
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation At 15 rather than 18, the ladder work, cable runs, truss assembly and mid-show fault-finding stay stubbornly manual, but a real slice of the job — writing cues, building plots and hookups, patching, and pre-visualizing looks in WYSIWYG or Vectorworks — is already software-assisted and gets faster with every release, so the trade resists digitisation without being immune to it.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments An 18 reflects load-ins on genie lifts and personnel lifts, focusing from catwalks and ladders, pulling feeder and multicable across a stage or location, and working in venues and on location where the temperature, the deck and the schedule are all somebody else's problem — this is uncontrolled physical work, docked from 20 only because a programmer's shift at the console is genuinely a desk job.
Certification preferred, not legally required A 5 is right because nothing legally stops anyone from hanging a fixture: ETCP Entertainment Electrician and Rigger certification is a hiring preference and an IATSE credential, not a statutory gate, and when the work crosses into permanent branch-circuit wiring a licensed electrician has to sign it, not you.
Meaningful discretion A 10 reflects real calls made without checking in — how to trim a truss to clear a set piece, whether that dimmer rack gets bypassed or replaced with the house going in twenty minutes, whether a point can take the load — but the design intent, the cue list and the final look belong to the lighting designer, so the ambiguous high-stakes aesthetic decisions aren't yours to own.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (15/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (5/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (8/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (10/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 23 of this occupation's 56 points (41%).
Embodiment (18/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
No occupation passed every test: close enough to lighting technicians on skills and subject matter, at least 10 points more resistant, no big jump in training, no new licence, no pay cut, and not shrinking on its own. That happens for 223 of the 654 occupations here that aren't SAFE, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving the section off.
The usual reason is that exposure travels with the skill profile. The jobs most similar to yours tend to be exposed for the same reasons yours is, so the near neighbours don't clear the gap — and the ones that do are a different kind of work, not a transfer of what you already know. Read that as a limit of this method, not a verdict that you're stuck: it only compares whole occupations, and it cannot see specialisation, industry, or anything you'd bring that isn't in a federal skill survey.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 70/100 — SAFE.
Task-mix shift plus the same certification trend: if the crew shrinks so the remaining head electrician is the person making live calls on rigging point capacity, arc-flash risk, and whether a truss goes up at all, the role owns consequential safety calls rather than executing them. Post-incident litigation over rigging collapses already names the certified rigger.
Two genuine tiers exist: console programming/paperwork (plot, hookup, magic sheet) versus on-site troubleshooting and design-intent focus. If AI absorbs the paperwork and pre-viz tier, the residual day is fault-finding dead DMX runs, sorting fixture firmware, and negotiating focus with a designer under time pressure — none of which current tools do.
Entertainment rigging and temporary power increasingly falls under enforced credentialing: ETCP (Entertainment Technician Certification Program) rigging/electrician certification is already written into some venue and insurer requirements, and several jurisdictions require a licensed electrician to sign off on temporary power distribution above a threshold. If ETCP certification (or a state electrical license for temporary distro) becomes a hard condition of venue insurance or of OSHA-referenced consensus standards (ANSI E1.x series), a named certified human personally owns the load calculation and rigging sign-off.
Narrow route only: IATSE local hiring-hall agreements that require union crew of a minimum size for a given rig, which are bargained per-venue and per-tour. This is a demand floor rather than a buyer paying for humanness.
The limit. The binding constraint is demand, not capability. Automated fixtures and pre-viz cut headcount regardless of how high liability or judgment scores go — a stronger licensing shield protects fewer jobs, each more defensible. No plausible route to a real consumer-facing trust premium; audiences never see who focused the light.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 2,040 | $105,010 +54% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 720 | $87,510 +29% |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | 380 | $61,250 -10% |
| San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA | 320 | $74,000 +9% |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 240 | $79,380 +17% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 200 | $70,150 +3% |
| Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL | 170 | $58,610 -14% |
| Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN | 160 | $62,790 -8% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 70 | $126,110 +85% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 2,040 | $105,010 +54% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 720 | $87,510 +29% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 56. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.