Well, that's a bummer. Thanks a lot for the information. The problem here is that I am not a light technician, but sound. I am taking on stage/set/show design for now. Programming an entire show will cost me hours and hours and I will still probably make serious mistakes since I am not invested enough, plus it would be unpaid (otherwise we'd pay an actual light tech). I've created a solution for now though. I'll import audio into QLab with countdowns for the light technician for those important moments ("Blackout in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, now"). Should work too. Again, thanks for all the information!
Reminds me of when our LD left and management didn't want to hire another one. The LD programmed the lights and we recorded him giving the light cues into my DAW. "Cue 63....GO". The spot op would hit the "GO" button using a footswitch while wearing cans and listening to the track while running the spot. It actually worked perfectly. If you have an LD available for these gigs, that's gotta be your easiest solution.
BTW, 2 years later we had to lose the spot op and I wound up running the lighting with midi commands. But I always had a pro do the programming every year.