I've heard that it's usually preferred if you have all the audio equipment on its own distro, including FOH. My question is how is that all wired together?
How do you get the FOH board wired into the same distro as the stuff on stage (or even back stage)? What if you wanted to put the entire system on a power sequencer?
That involves lots of copper! A "typical" large venue may have 2 or more tie in points. A 400A 5 wire with lugs or cams to go to the kind of distro you linked to for lights. Also a smaller 100 or 200A 5 wire for sound. Of course any given venue may have more or less than this. The tie points may be right off stage or several hundred feet away. Often times a 3rd tie in point may be provided for chain motor power.
A "typical" road show going into the above venue will travel with all there lights and sound equipment. That equipment will include a large trunk of feeder. Typically a hundred feet of heavy cam lock cables to go from the distro to the tie point, broken up into "tails" some short and some long cables. This trunk can be 600 to 1000LB on its own. Once the distro is tied in then a dimmer rack or another distro may take a feed from the threw on the first distro or a second tie point. All the rest of the equipment will be tied to these distros. The FOH "snake bundle" for audio may also include a very large cable just for power. Mine has a 10-3 Soow cable with Twist lock ends. The FOH lighting run for a festival my include an extra 100A run just for follow spots.
My point is that a large part of the weight shipped with each show is cable. I have done shows where it took a semi to haul just the cables! Even on VERY small shows, most of the weight of equipment was in cables.
Also keep in mind that a show may get inspected and the person doing the inspection typically can shut you down. You have to do every thing by the book (that book being the NEC listed above.) Even by the book your at the whim of the person inspecting and local codes. One place I use to work at needed a "spider box" The one we got cost 2x the money because we were in a "fire district" and it needed an extra listing that only 1 place could do. This is where experience and knowledge is invaluable.