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Sidechain Software

Why TheatreChat?

TheatreChat is, at the lowest level, an OSC specification for human-to-human and machine-to-human text-based communication over a local network*. The free TheatreChat app is the primary implementation of this specification, providing the user interface (UI) to view messages. There’s nothing to stop you from building your own app for this, but we’ve tried to making using ours simple and flexible enough for everyone.

We built TheatreChat because we were unimpressed by the existing for local network text-based communication in the context of theatre and live events. We’d tried it all - Wavetool chat was too expensive if you didn’t have a license already, Messages from Radio World was over-simplified, and IRC was too complex to configure. That said, they all had their strong points too - Wavetool and Radio World have features like preset messages and the ability to flash the operator’s screen, and IRC is extensible and has the ability to have multiple channels.

TheatreChat aims to combines the best from these three apps while also adding our own sugar on top. TheatreChat is:

  • 100% free, and always will be
  • Easy to use in a simple way, but infinitely extensible
  • Compatible with anything that can speak OSC, including (but not limited to) QLab, Eos desks, Companion and DiGiCo consoles
  • Multi-channel capable
  • Made for live events, with features like making the screen flash, large text sizes, preset messages, and extra-dark mode
* Technically machine-to-machine communication is possible with TheatreChat, but we don't recommend it