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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: Ethan Montgomery on May 04, 2020, 11:15:29 PM
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I've spent a couple hours researching this forum and elsewhere, and can't seem to find an answer, so here goes.
Here's the scenario - let's imagine a typical 'theater' type stage with wings on stage left and right. At the outside edges of the wings are walls where there are installed power outlets, which will supply power to a bunch of stringers on stage. Necessarily, this means a bunch of cables laying across the floor of the wing, creating a trip hazard (and impeding rolling cases, etc).
Can a (relatively shallow) trough be installed into the floor between the wall and the edge of the stage (along the floor of the wing), with perhaps a folding cover, to run the power cables from the wall to the stage? Think effectively a Yellow Jacket/cable ramp that is made to be flush with the surrounding floor.
I've found a bunch of info regarding conduit and raceway as it pertains to permanent installs (not that I totally understand all of it), but this wouldn't be exactly that per se. To provide a more specifics - let's say it's a bunch of L5-20 permanently installed outlets along the wall at the outside perimeter of the stage wing. From there, SOOW cables will plug into the wall outlets, then run to various stringers around the stage (which obviously move from show-to-show, I believe making this a 'portable' application?). The idea is to get these "under" the floor in the wings so that everything is flush, and doesn't impede either foot traffic or rolling equipment.
One hypothetical plan - to make it even more specific - would be to raise the floor in the wings some height (maybe ~6-12"?) above the level of the stage itself. Then a long thin portion of the raised floor can flip up - just like a yellow jacket/cable ramp - revealing the trough below. Obviously the lid would need some structural integrity to support weight on top of it, but I don't think that's relevant here. The wall end and stage end will necessarily be 'wide open' in some fashion (perhaps a hole with the same cross section as the trough, but facing up toward the wall at that end, and facing parallel to the stage at the other end, exiting the raised floor at stage level?). I.e., the wing's floor is level with the lid of the trough, and the stage is level with the bottom of the trough. This would probably require some sort of ramp(s) down from the wing level to stage level for people and equipment, but I don't think that's relevant here.
What NEC/NFPA guideline(s) might cover this? Or is this a total non-issue and I'm overthinking it? Despite this scenario being a 'permanent' venue, I believe that because the cables are terminated with stringers that can move around the stage, this is strictly a 'portable' scenario. I.e., rules governing the use of conduit and THHN/NM wiring for hardwired stage pockets, etc has little-to-nothing to do with this scenario. This is SOOW cable terminating in movable stringers all sitting atop the stage. Really I just want to cover the cables in the wings to keep people/equipment/cables safe from trip hazards and damage, and keep it all flush with the floor in the wing.
For even *further* elaboration - the concept would be expanded to xlr subsnakes and speaker wire for the stage as well - but I should think that at most, the same rules would apply, with perhaps at most separate troughs for each (either by requirement or just best practices).
Any thoughts or info is appreciated - thanks!
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One hypothetical plan - to make it even more specific - would be to raise the floor in the wings some height (maybe ~6-12"?) above the level of the stage itself. Then a long thin portion of the raised floor can flip up - just like a yellow jacket/cable ramp - revealing the trough below. Obviously the lid would need some structural integrity to support weight on top of it, but I don't think that's relevant here. The wall end and stage end will necessarily be 'wide open' in some fashion (perhaps a hole with the same cross section as the trough, but facing up toward the wall at that end, and facing parallel to the stage at the other end, exiting the raised floor at stage level?). I.e., the wing's floor is level with the lid of the trough, and the stage is level with the bottom of the trough. This would probably require some sort of ramp(s) down from the wing level to stage level for people and equipment, but I don't think that's relevant here.
Hypothetically, you have destroyed all usefulness of your wing space by elevating it above stage level, even if a fraction of an inch instead of your six to twelve inches.
If it is indeed a “theater” type stage (your quotation marks), how would one move scenic units with caster clearance of less than an inch into the wings efficiently over any kind of ramp? Far different than road cases and on dark stages people would have trouble navigating any ramped area.
What happens at the offstage wall where there are usually doors or openings into adjoining spaces and you would have a huge transition to make?
Your idea is not without merit but you need to explore the exact construction of your stage floor. Many stage floors are layers of hardwood or plywood supported by a grid of “sleepers” (2x4’s laid flat) fastened to the concrete underneath. The point being there is actually a void of maybe 2 1/4” minimum from the underside of the top layer of the floor to the surface of the concrete. There is your chase or trough space already built in. The trick will be to cut out the trough lid and fit a replacement and its fasteners/hinges so as to to prevent trip hazards and remove any intersecting sleepers in the process. Whether this is code-compliant is another question.
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I agree with Scott, raising the floor level of the wings is a terrible idea, unless you also raise the stage and give careful consideration to all other areas that it connects to. ADA specs for ramps are a minimum of 36" width and at least 12" of run for every 1" of rise. That means if you raised the wings 6" above stage height, your ramps would have to be at least 6' long. In my experience, you really don't want a ramp steeper than this, even if it doesn't need to be ADA compliant. I can't imagine anyone actually doing this to a stage. The construction would be a nightmare and the end result would be awkward.
I don't know all the details about running cable in troughs, but I'm vaguely aware of a type TC (tray cable) that's intended to be installed in those sorts of things, although not typically in an accessible area. I'm not sure if you'd be allowed to run SOOW though a trough, and if you did, you might not want to leave it for any longer than one show. If you can run SOOW down it, it's likely that you can run other stuff alongside it.
If I were doing this, I'd probably make the trough lids out of fairly thick aluminum or steel, in 3-5' lengths, with notches for cable exit every foot or two. 3/4" plywood might work, depending on the width and weight you need it to handle. You'd want them to be exactly even with the surrounding surface, with very little gap. It would be nice if they didn't slide around, and had either locating pins or hidden/flush hinges (not exposed hinges that protrude). Build them heavy, because they'll take a lot of abuse. I think they'll be really difficult to get right, so pay attention to the details. And no matter how you do it they'll probably be a little noisy when rolling things across. That might be a dealbreaker for theatre stuff, but maybe not. And they probably won't ever be in the perfect spot, but they might be close most of the time.
Why not just do floor pockets like everyone else? They're never in quite the right spot either, but they're usually close enough. And obviously they can meet code.
Also, I'm not an expert, so take all this with a grain of salt. Hopefully someone with in-depth knowledge of the code will chime in.
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Hypothetically, you have destroyed all usefulness of your wing space by elevating it above stage level, even if a fraction of an inch instead of your six to twelve inches.
If it is indeed a “theater” type stage (your quotation marks), how would one move scenic units with caster clearance of less than an inch into the wings efficiently over any kind of ramp? Far different than road cases and on dark stages people would have trouble navigating any ramped area.
What happens at the offstage wall where there are usually doors or openings into adjoining spaces and you would have a huge transition to make?
Your idea is not without merit but you need to explore the exact construction of your stage floor. Many stage floors are layers of hardwood or plywood supported by a grid of “sleepers” (2x4’s laid flat) fastened to the concrete underneath. The point being there is actually a void of maybe 2 1/4” minimum from the underside of the top layer of the floor to the surface of the concrete. There is your chase or trough space already built in. The trick will be to cut out the trough lid and fit a replacement and its fasteners/hinges so as to to prevent trip hazards and remove any intersecting sleepers in the process. Whether this is code-compliant is another question.
I guess I should clarify that:
A) The idea is for a strictly music venue
B) It would not be using an existing structure.
I suppose it was a mistake for me to suggest that it's 'theater' style... I really just meant that it was a stage with wings. I.e., space on the sides of the stage for amp racks, splitter, monitor consoles, etc.
Also, the notion of having a different level isn't integral at all to the idea... it was one thought about how the concept could be implemented (and I don't think would have the impact on the space's use for music the way it would, for example, for set pieces being moved around in the middle of a play - though point taken).
How about I put it this way:
From the side of the stage, let's say monitor world, or perhaps wherever the PD is located, you have a bunch of cabling running onto the stage. To protect the cables from feet and casters as people and equipment get on and off the stage, you put it in a cable ramp. This would be pretty standard practice in say, a temporary outdoor stage for a festival.
Now let's say instead of a temporary outdoor stage, it's a 'permanent' indoor music venue. Can I effectively do the same thing, but just cut a channel in the floor such that the cable ramp sits flush with the surrounding floor? It's still going to be (in the case of power), SOOW cable terminated in say, quad boxes that can be moved around the stage.
On one hand, my intuition would be to say of course that's not an issue, it's the exact same thing - with the bonus of being less of a trip hazard. But I know that despite being "portable" (assuming I'm understanding that concept correctly) in that it's a bunch of quad boxes at the end of SOOW cable (and not floor pockets installed into the stage), it could also be considered "permanent" - which I think may change things. Perhaps now the cable ramp is a 'conduit' or 'raceway', and I have to use THHN instead of SOOW? This is precisely where my already very fuzzy understanding becomes exponentially fuzzier.
The problem basically is this: There's a bunch of cabling at the side of the stage coming from the wall, monitor world, etc, that would be under-foot and under-caster along its path to the stage. I want to protect it the same way that is typically done with cable ramps in 'temporary' settings. The point of this exercise is to *not* use floor pockets. Bonus points for making it flush with the floor. Can this be done without violating some sort of NEC and/or NFPA code? Is there any reason that a simple channel cut into the floor of sufficient depth - perhaps even just covered with a flush metal grate - would be treated any differently than if it were just sitting on the floor?
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How about hanging it over the wing? Go up over and down. Basically install a flying tray in a few places have it be able to be dropped out of the tray where you need it to be. I would assume it would be behind the side stage teaser curtains. That is how we get cabling to some parts of the stage where we could never put something on the floor, for many reasons. It could even be motorized.
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One thing to keep in mind is that a major consideration with code specs other than physical protection is heat dissipation. There are a number of tables in the NEC dealing with this-so a couple of cables in a trough is probably fine. Even as few as 5-6 cables can be 10 to 24 current carrying conductors depending on the configuration which could result in a pretty serious derate of the cables.
Not a deal breaker but something to be aware of.
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I don't know if it would meet code for temporary service but Wiremold makes a surface flush floor duct called Trench Duct and they offer a removable cover for it. I see the point of what you are trying to accomplish but, I think you maybe looking at the wrong solution. A theater sized venue is typically going to have an installed sound system and power distribution should be included as part of that. The types of acts that play these size rooms typically aren't going to be traveling with production and it will be cost prohibited to bring in outside production for every show if this is going to be full time venue.
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If you end up with some kind of trough system you will end up with holes in the flooring where the cables must come out. That ends up being a trip hazard anyway. A hole in the stage is much more dangerous than a couple of power cables run along the floor. And the trough system will probably match the color of the stage, thus making it harder to see in the typical lighting conditions of active stages.
Still the best option is to use cables ramps that people can see and will know what they are, while routing cables cleanly and uniformly around the stage to minimize tripping hazards and leave large exit aisle open for the stage and equipment. Usually that means running all power on the downstage edge for any gear downstage and running all the remaining power from the upstage area for any gear upstage.
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I can't speak to the code issues (the CEC is quite different from the NEC when it comes to theatrical applications), but cable troughs are a feature at many of the smaller and mid-sized theatres in my area. Typically they ring the perimeter of the the stage (just offstage of the wings to just upstage of the cyc). They're typically ~30-45 cm wide, only ~5-10 cm deep, and are lidded with either ~3 mm steel on flush hinges or 3/4" plywood. Openings for cables are either a series of small notches on the non-hinged side of the metal lid (small enough to not be tripping hazards or catch casters), removable plugs between panels (these can be a tripping hazard if the plug is removed), or even just small gaps left between panels where a cable needs to come out (which might be a tripping hazard depending on the width of the gap). Some will even have power outlets available directly in the trough (although around here these are typically dimmed LX circuits).
The troughs are only for portable cable (any outlets installed in the trough will be wired from outside the trough or will use conduit), so the practice here is that line-voltage and low-voltage in the same trough shouldn't matter from a safety standpoint (any more than it does bundling a power cable with a mult, anyway). On the show I was working before all this started we had a few audio power runs, several dimmed LX runs, several mults, a couple loose audio channels, a network line, a couple fibre lines, a few baseband video feeds, etc. all tucked together into the (pretty full) stage right trough.
I can't speak to NEC code, but what your describing is common practice in my part of the world and does a good job keeping cables (and actors) safe.
-Russ
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I can't speak to the code issues (the CEC is quite different from the NEC when it comes to theatrical applications), but cable troughs are a feature at many of the smaller and mid-sized theatres in my area. Typically they ring the perimeter of the the stage (just offstage of the wings to just upstage of the cyc). They're typically ~30-45 cm wide, only ~5-10 cm deep, and are lidded with either ~3 mm steel on flush hinges or 3/4" plywood. Openings for cables are either a series of small notches on the non-hinged side of the metal lid (small enough to not be tripping hazards or catch casters), removable plugs between panels (these can be a tripping hazard if the plug is removed), or even just small gaps left between panels where a cable needs to come out (which might be a tripping hazard depending on the width of the gap). Some will even have power outlets available directly in the trough (although around here these are typically dimmed LX circuits).
The larger theatre I'm occasionally working calls at has a very similar trough setup. There's a ring around the stage, then through the back hallway and a room backstage out to the parking for video and audio trucks. I don't believe we have any circuits in the troughs, there's separate stage pockets with the dimmed circuits.
I'm also in Western Canada, it is more common in this area for some reason?
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One church project I did years ago - their TD also mixed at the local theater, and requested something similar for the church instead of floor pockets.
That project had a trough across downstage, another across upstage, which both dumped into a stage right main trough that went from DSR to backstage, then to the rack room. There were Edison outlets every 10' or so in the trough. The cover plates were wood (wood stage) with the same finish, with one cutout per cover. Each cover piece was 4' if I remember correctly. When the covers were in place, you could hardly see them, and they weren't any more of a trip hazard when closed then regular floor pockets. I think they had a few small sub-snakes in there, along with network cable.
In the end - it worked for them and they were happy. I didn't see any benefit over traditional floor pockets, and it was slower than simply plugging into a floor pocket.
The other factor seems to be - are trenches intended to replace floor boxes, or replace sub-snakes on stage, or be used between stage and FOH? Very different applications.
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I didn't see any benefit over traditional floor pockets, and it was slower than simply plugging into a floor pocket.
The benefit in my mind is cost and flexibility: today I've got a ukulele ensemble with 32 inputs downstage, tomorrow it's 18 circuits of footlights and an 8-piece jazz ensemble just down of the cyc, and a couple of days from now it's a tour providing their own stage setup. Floor pockets will accommodate two of the three, but require a lot of up-front cost for a lot of rarely-used copper, whereas with a trough I can use the same subsnake downstage today for the ukes and upstage tomorrow for the band, and the electricians can easily run soca for the one time a year some asks for foots, and the tour can drop their cable in for the day.
-Russ
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The benefit in my mind is cost and flexibility: today I've got a ukulele ensemble with 32 inputs downstage, tomorrow it's 18 circuits of footlights and an 8-piece jazz ensemble just down of the cyc, and a couple of days from now it's a tour providing their own stage setup. Floor pockets will accommodate two of the three, but require a lot of up-front cost for a lot of rarely-used copper, whereas with a trough I can use the same subsnake downstage today for the ukes and upstage tomorrow for the band, and the electricians can easily run soca for the one time a year some asks for foots, and the tour can drop their cable in for the day.
-Russ
I'm gonna chime in and say that floor pockets are of the devil and then I'm gonna slink back into my corner...
[But yeah, floor pockets are evil and should be banned from the earth.]
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I'm gonna chime in and say that floor pockets are of the devil and then I'm gonna slink back into my corner...
[But yeah, floor pockets are evil and should be banned from the earth.]
I'm also going to chime in that floor pockets are not what I prefer. Inevitably there's not enough channels, or the pocket is in the wrong spot, something must be placed directly over top of it, if the floor gets mopped eventually there's corrosion issues...
The goal of a floor pocket is tidiness, and minimizing trip hazards. Can work if the configuration is well thought out and either doesn't change, or the potential changes have been taken into account. This almost never happens.
A while back I was lead installer on a council chamber type project. It's supposed to be a multi-purpose room so all of the tables and chairs may be stowed in 2 rooms that are the correct size to accommodate. Many, many consultations with architects and engineers. There's highly detailed drawings of everything including the layout of the custom council furniture that we're installing microphones and data cabling into. The floor pockets have been cut into the concrete and properly sized conduits installed by the electrician. Lots of floor pockets... 11... 13, maybe more. A pocket for each desk and the lectern. I've pulled wire and terminated the floor pockets, ready to go.
The furniture people deliver, assemble, place and leave. We're in the final push of the job, finishes are coming together, cleaners are starting to come in etc. Of course there have been change orders for the other trades but the opening date has not been moved back... so at this point we're trying to get cracking on wiring up these desks, which is looking good. Then this person I've never seen before that works for the client comes in and starts barking orders: "NO, NO! I told them this won't do!!! Move this there, move that here!" All of the desks get moved around to accommodate her vision of the layout never mind what anyone else has planned or paid for. "There. That's where they go." And for whatever reason that's where they went.
After that only 3 of the floor pockets were in locations that worked. The conduits were not sized to be able to accommodate this change well. Serious compromises were eventually made that negatively affected the automixing capabilities of the system.
To finish the story off, a few days after this we're down to the wire. We've been waiting for this real wood laminate wall paper to be installed so we can mount 4 90" TVs which everyone is very nervous about because at the time they were about the largest size you could get and very expensive. It's a Sunday afternoon before the opening the next evening and the owner of the company I'm working for is there because the 4 TVs were worth a total of something like $50000. Long story short, the main client rep shows up and demands 2 of the TVs be mounted in slightly different locations. Slightly different enough that the blocking that's long been installed in the wall behind this expensive wood laminate won't work. My employer and the rep get into it with the result that the TVs go in the new location.
Anyways, when the architect comes in the next day he starts to very calmly blow a gasket on me for 2 of the TVs being in the wrong spot. I re-direct his attention towards the client's rep, then the architect proceeds to very politely rip this guy a new one while indirectly letting all of the remaining trades and the client's associates know who's actually in charge of a construction project. Too little too late, but it was also a good lesson in how effective a little professional humiliation can be.
This job didn't have a good ending, the hired programmer bricked the main DSP during a firmware update a few hours after this. Big oops, no spare available, massive scramble to try to get something, anything working. We did in the end but it was not pretty, none of the fancy automation was available for opening night of the Million Dollar Boardroom. (Maybe should have posted this story in the disaster gigs thread in the basement)
So yeah, I'm not down with floor pockets most of the time. A lot of planning needed for something that IMO doesn't often work well.
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Every one of my corporate horror stories starts with a "person supposedly in charge" making sweeping changes to plans approved or created at the highest levels, but *we* are but minions to be ordered about. I've told this story before but it's worth a condensed repeat.
Back in a previous decade Cessna Aircraft was purchased by Textron (who also ended up buying a helicopter company and Beechcraft/Hawker). Textron was flying in their CEO for a big off-site meeting with executives and managers. Textron has a PR company that handles the planning and design for such events. The firm set detailed drawings for the set, video and room treatments.
I'm there as a grip to help set lights (minimal fixture visibility, cables run thru the ceiling, etc). We arrive at 8am with the projection/AV crew. We get it mostly all set before noon. Decorator comes in, put his hands on his hips and says "Boys, this just wont do!" and proceeds to rearrange the set to his liking, and we move some lights and refocus. Now time for a late lunch... but no, Mrs R. (her real initial!) comes in and because she's the personal assistant to the Cessna president, when she put her hands on her hips and said "boys, this just won't do", we're obligated to listen. She has the crew rearrange the set and decor/props. We relight it, recable some fixtures... and now it's 4pm or so and still not had lunch. The advance man from Textron's PR company arrives, looks at the set and asks "why doesn't this look like the diagram you were faxed?" We all explain the "death by corporate pecking order" and he nods. "Ok, make it look like the picture I sent, we'll do a quick test and I'll buy dinner and drinks and approve the overtime." Had he flown in the morning of the event it would have been too late to restore the changes made by Decorator Guy and Mrs R.
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I'm gonna chime in and say that floor pockets are of the devil and then I'm gonna slink back into my corner...
I used to think so as well, back when I was on the live mixing side of things in older churches. After switching to the AVL designer side for new construction projects - they're now a necessary not-so-evil. With the huge caveat of - "If they're designed well."
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I used to think so as well, back when I was on the live mixing side of things in older churches. After switching to the AVL designer side for new construction projects - they're now a necessary not-so-evil. With the huge caveat of - "If they're designed well."
I've not seen many of these alleged "designed well" floor pocket systems you speak of. :)
For me it comes down to a lot of little things, that mostly come down to the age old caveat that "things change". Lots of floor pocket system are well designed for the use case when they were installed, but then "things change". And now they're in the wrong place or don't have enough of one type of connection but too many of another. No matter how many XLR inputs they have in them, I'm sure to need one more, meanwhile the 8 NL4 outputs in the box go unused.
If you make the boxes big enough to have a large assortment of connections, they become so large that they impact what I can put where on the stage without covering them up. Or we put in a bunch of smaller ones, and we end up with the same issue. Stage rugs cover them, risers sit on them, etc.
Then there's the boxes themselves which inevitably bust my knuckles getting things into them or are so tight that I can't get the stupid XLR lock released or the opening when the door is closed is too small for the 12AWG power cables that I'm trying to run into them or whatever.
I totally get the desire to have a clean looking stage. There are times when some downstage pockets can help keep things clean. But I think I'd still rather have a trough system with cable cutouts so I can put in whatever I want so that I can make changes more easily when the needs change.
I think if I was designing a system for a stage today, I would possibly install floor pockets with power and cat5. Then drop whatever digital audio stage box I need in whatever location I need it. Bonus points if it can all be Dante.
But 5 years after its install, Dante's successor will come out and use fiber or something and the pockets will STILL be wrong.
Just my 2 pennies worth. YMMV...
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I've not seen many of these alleged "designed well" floor pocket systems you speak of. :)
SNIP
I think if I was designing a system for a stage today, I would possibly install floor pockets with power and cat5. Then drop whatever digital audio stage box I need in whatever location I need it. Bonus points if it can all be Dante.
I used to think I was going to love Dante (or any scalable digital snake system) for exactly what you're describing. And in some situations it does work very well. I love it for corporate gigs where everything is spread out, I need a select number of I/O in several locations: FOH, Stage, Visuals, RF, etc. Having multiple 16x8 I/O boxes in considerably more useful than say, having 48 inputs in one location. I love it for expanding smaller mixers to use in addition to the onboard I/O like the Yamaha QL series.
What I don't really like is having the I/O boxes out on stage for a performance. I always feel a bit apprehensive that someone is going to unplug it by accident, or knock something onto it, or on a small stage trip over it. Most I/O boxes I've used are of the rack mount variety besides the one A&H offering I'm aware of no one is really building a "sub snake" digital I/O box. Or if they do exist I'm not seeing them in the wild. (back when we still did gigs). So we're back to square 1, trying to keep the stage clean with floor pockets but not really accomplishing that.
Maybe I'm not looking far enough ahead- perhaps more devices will come with a standard digital interface in future and we can just run Cat whatever cable everywhere to everything. Judging by how analog interconnect turned out I'm not optimistic . For example, how many connector types and how many analog interface types do we have to work with on an ongoing basis? OR, the very small Dante interfaces need to come WAY down in price.
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Maybe I'm not looking far enough ahead- perhaps more devices will come with a standard digital interface in future and we can just run Cat whatever cable everywhere to everything. Judging by how analog interconnect turned out I'm not optimistic . For example, how many connector types and how many analog interface types do we have to work with on an ongoing basis? OR, the very small Dante interfaces need to come WAY down in price.
I've not seen many of these alleged "designed well" floor pocket systems you speak of.
There are well-designed floor boxes (stage infrastructure), but only in a few churches; if tours come through, the floor boxes typically aren't used. Stage infrastructure includes not only the boxes but also the conduit, connectors, and power.
More often now the floor boxes also include fiber, especially at potential camera locations. This fiber in its as-installed form can handle 12G-SDI, com, data; super-mega-future-Dante/AVB/AES67/whatever; and SDVoE, MediorNet, etc.
The invisible future-proof components though is the conduit, and the relative low cost of replacing individual connectors. Say there are a pair of NL4's that are long-unused, and going forward OpticalCon will get a lot of use. Pull out the NL4 connectors, tape fiber to one end of the old cable, pull the speaker wire out/fiber in, terminate, and done. As long as there is plenty of conduit, sized for current and future use, run to the right other locations - this does a good job of not inherently limiting boxes. What it doesn't do is move the physical location of each box, but if designed well (floor box or upstage wall panel within 15' of any point) - having to move floor boxes is not an issue.
I'm not saying floor boxes are best. I am saying that for some applications (HoW mostly), if there are enough boxes at the right locations, if there is enough right-sized conduit, and if the right connectors - along with wall panels behind the curtains along the upstage walls for sub-snakes and backline - it can work well. Designing permanent stage infrastructure well is not trivial or cheap, hence why it's so often botched.
As a BE on tour, where every cable and connection is rolled up and taken from venue to venue - I consider floor boxes part of the physical structure, and thus not used by the tour. In that situation it's all sub-snakes and wireless.
Like Matthew - I haven't personally used any of the digital stage boxes (IE Dante or ACE or MADI) on stage in place of sub-snakes. I see those devices as best racked-up, with analog sub-snakes from them to the various points on stage. In the same rack as wireless receivers - great. Sitting next to the drummer to have the network cable stepped on - not so much. If there are more 4 and 8 channel, tiny form factor, tiny price tag options in the future - then yes.