Gilderfluke systems are used at Disney and Universal Studios theme parks and underpin the Rose Bowl Parade.

"A whole parade can be networked off our little controllers, which fit in the palm of your hand," Mobley says. "That controller has a clock inside. It has a GPS plug-in if you need to be really, really accurate. It has audio playback off an Sd card, and it has the equivalent of a 500-watt amplifier. It's got a massive amount of power . . . to play back the show data that you've programmed into it."

Mobley says his company's controllers are ideal for lighting shows that operate faster than a human could control manually.

"We actually update the data at 30 frames per second," Mobley says. "We're sending out massive amounts of data so we can turn on and off every light on every frame. Even the most powerful lighting board would lock up."

Ferrell estimates that the entire Calloway Gardens Fantasy in Lights show has around $6 million worth of lighting, sound and computerized controls.