Qlab "Panic Safe" cues

[IL ROSSO]

Hi all,

i wish to put out an idea that in my case would be very helpful:

In a corporate situation where Qlab is managing sound and Ledwall content the accidental press of ESC kills the video even if it's in another project.

I think it would be very helpfult to have a "panic safe" option that keeps the cue running even if panic is triggered.

I came to this conclusion since in the enviroment where i tend to program (cruise industry) the average tech is not an expert and the tendency is to use Esc to stop music.

Hope this sparks a conversation and hopefully ends up in future release of the software.

[Paul]

Not this again. This issue has been done to death in various groups over the years.

For various reasons, this is a bad idea.  

In general, "don't panic" and don't press escape. Train the operator so they know the plot.

You can set up another hotkey trigger to stop audio cues, leaving video running, if you feel the need for this.

Put this in a Script cue and give it a hot key trigger, then your operator has option

tell application id "com.figure53.QLab.5" to tell front workspace to panic (every cue whose q type is "Audio")

[Chris Ashworth]

While we generally do desire to keep a clear way to stop all cues easily and quickly, this request has come up enough over the years that we’re thinking through a few ideas related to it.

We’ve discussed and debated a number of options internally, and they all have pros and cons.  

I don’t know if this will lead to a future feature, but I did want to say that we have spent (and continue to spend) time thinking about it and discussing how it might be designed.

-C

[Paul]

Can I pitch in here and suggest a check box on the Video or Text cue that says "Ignore panic"

[Rich Walsh]

Why only those two cue types? What about the people who wanted this as they use automatic audio failover when a pilot tone is lost?

At some point we went from “panic hard stops everything” to “first panic fades out everything and leaves reverb tails; second panic hard stops everything”. Is there a consistent extension from this to “third panic stops EVERYTHING” including those cues which have a flag set to be persistent? The natural place to put this would be on the Triggers tab. It would mean that anyone would be able to stop any QLab workspace they ever encountered using ESC as they are used to, just with an extra press.

On this page there are 3 distinct events: panicAll, stopAll and hardStopAll – although “stopAll” isn’t really explained anywhere as far as I can see…? Maybe these are the three types of “panic”: fade out, stop and “stop beds” – proper hard stop everything. On the second triggers menu there’s a choice of panic, stop and hard stop. Maybe there’s another checkbox of “This cue can only be stopped by a hard stop”? I’ve forgotten the precise distinction between a “stop” and a “hard stop” as it stands – and have failed to find it in the manual!

Rich

[Sam Kusnetz]

On Apr 29, 2026 at 4:05:52 PM, 'Rich Walsh' via QLab <ql...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

At some point we went from “panic hard stops everything” to “first panic fades out everything and leaves reverb tails; second panic hard stops everything”.

QLab 3 introduced the concept of panic. In QLab 1 and 2, hitting the escape key just stopped everything cold.

Is there a consistent extension from this to “third panic stops EVERYTHING” including those cues which have a flag set to be persistent? The natural place to put this would be on the Triggers tab. It would mean that anyone would be able to stop any QLab workspace they ever encountered using ESC as they are used to, just with an extra press.

We definitely want to adhere to the idea that anyone who has ever used QLab can walk up to any workspace anywhere and stop all playback, so something along these lines would have to be part of the design.

On this page there are 3 distinct events: panicAll, stopAll and hardStopAll – although “stopAll” isn’t really explained anywhere as far as I can see…? […] I’ve forgotten the precise distinction between a “stop” and a “hard stop” as it stands – and have failed to find it in the manual!

Panic = fade out over the workspace panic duration and then stop.

Stop = stop immediately, but allow reverb tails and the like to continue rendering.

Hard stop = stop immediately without caveats.

-sk

—

Sam Kusnetz (he/him) | Figure 53

s...@figure53.com

[Francisco]

At some moment trying to program more complex shows, both for theater and for corporate, I ended up finding myself with this same problem.

I share my approach in case it would be useful.

When I have multiple types of use, I separate them into different CueLists. And then I do a main CueList.

Let's put for example, a CueList for LX, another for Video, another for Audio... and finally one for Stage Manager to play all the others.

In the Stage Manager list, which would be the MainCueList, I only put start or stop cues, referenced to other CueLists' cues.

Thanks to the Collaboration feature, I can have a main Mac and several connected stations for each operator to operate their part.

Likewise, in single-position, several CueLists can be opened in new windows and a complete workspace can be managed through several windows. Qlab has some gaps here, in the handling of both the inspector (it is not possible to put independent inspectors for each cuelist, only for specific cues) and the multi-windows(sometimes they move from space alone, for example), but the "Jump to the target cue" function is excellent for editing from the MainCuelist.

On the other hand, I have a CueCart of shortcuts and various functions, controlling the local Qlab through OSC.

Here I put some buttons for Individualized Panic to each CueList.

This CueCart can be linked to a MIDI controller, Stream Deck or directly use an iPad. In addition, I can also activate each Panic button by different Key Triggers.

This arrangement saved as a template is a very comfortable start for many types of show, it helps a lot to segment the information and facilitate control.