Takeover and resume
A canvas can show only one item at a time, and during a match many items compete for the same canvas. This page explains how ArenaDirector picks one. Buses are different: audio from many items mixes, and only the fade settings described under Audio below stop it.
In short, the item you start live wins, and the item underneath comes back on its own. When the last claim above the idle content ends, the canvas shows its idle content again.
Priority
ArenaDirector decides separately for each canvas, and for each section of a board with sections:
- A hot button or sequence that targets it. It keeps the canvas for as long as it plays.
- The active rotation, on a perimeter canvas.
- The idle content of the canvas, when nothing else targets it. See Create a canvas.
There is no queue: a canvas takeover happens immediately. ArenaDirector suspends the item that lost the canvas instead of stopping it. Audio works differently, as described under Audio below.
The same rule applies when you start a sequence. It takes its canvases from any hot button holding them, and each of those hot buttons then releases the canvases or stops, depending on its own setting.
Only the canvases that an item uses
A takeover claims canvases one by one, not the whole sequence.
Say a sequence is playing on the bowl PA and the main screen, and you fire a hot button that targets only the screen. The sequence carries on on the PA.
So give each hot button only the canvases it actually needs. A hot button that shows on every canvas takes every canvas.
Boards with sections follow the same rule. A hot button that targets one section takes only that section, and the rest of the board keeps going.
What resumes, and where
A suspended sequence resumes from where it stopped instead of starting over.
A rotation is different. Its loop keeps running while a hot button covers the section, and when the hot button ends, the rotation shows whichever item is due at that moment, not the one that was on the section before the takeover.
So a takeover costs one sponsor a few seconds of its slot and does not push the other items of the rotation later. Firing hot buttons during a match does not make any sponsor lose airtime.
When you want the sequence to stop
Suspend and resume is the default because it usually suits music beds. It does not suit a scripted package: if a hot button interrupts your half-time sequence, you probably do not want it to carry on from the middle of a cue.
For that case, the sequence settings have Stop and rewind under When another item takes one of my canvases. With this option, a takeover stops the sequence and rewinds it to the start, and you start it again when you are ready.
This setting only covers canvas takeovers. On a shared bus, ArenaDirector pauses nothing and the sequence carries on, with one exception: if the sequence has Can be faded out by others and the hot button has Fade out other audio on shared buses when started, the sequence stops.
Audio
A hot button or sequence can have Fade out other audio on shared buses when started. When it starts, it stops every item that is playing on one of the same buses and has Can be faded out by others. Each stopped item fades according to its own fade-out setting.
Everything else keeps playing together. A sequence faded out this way always stops and rewinds.
Idle audio on a shared bus fades out the same way and comes back when the hot button or sequence ends.
An item without audio, such as a video-only hot button or a sequence without audio clips, does not fade other items, and other items do not fade it.
Two sequences that use the same canvas
A sequence never takes a canvas from another sequence without asking. If you start a sequence that needs a canvas another sequence is using, ArenaDirector prompts you with both names:
‘Pre-game' needs canvases owned by ‘Walk-in'. Take over?
Select Take over to stop the other sequence, or Cancel to let it continue.
Two sequences that use different buses, canvases and sections play together without a prompt.