Journalist, writer, editor and publisher—MacKay is a pioneering figure in entertainment communications. MacKay founded Entertainment Technology Communications Corporation which published Theatre Crafts International/TCI and Lighting Dimensions (now published as Live Design Online), and founded the entertainment technology industry trade show and seminar event, LDI.
Since selling her entertainment media company in 1996, Pat MacKay has divided her time among writing, content creation, website development, and production for a wide range of new and old media, themed attraction, entertainment and special events projects for clients that include Times Mirror Group, Fox TV Studios, Warner Bros./Six Flags, Paramount Parks/Viacom, On Track Themes, Landmark Entertainment, Universal Studios, C2C, The Hettema Group, and Quite Specific Media.
In 2013 Quite Specific Media appointed her Editorial Director and established the Pat MacKay Projects imprint. Under this banner, MacKay has produced Digital Costume Design and Rendering by Annie Cleveland, the 2015 Production Stage Management for Broadway by Peter Lawrence and the 2018 Color & Light by Clifton Taylor which is the first lighting book to deal with the transition to the LED additive color world. And now, under the Silman James Press banner, she continues as Acquisitions Director.
MacKay has served as producer and moderator of panels and workshops on entertainment architecture, theatre architecture and themed entertainment and location-based entertainment design. Additionally, she was instrumental in the launch and structure of eight years of Lighting Dimensions International workshops and seminars, and has also participated in sessions at Indiana University, Pro Sound and Light Asia/Singapore, World Light Fair /Tokyo, USITT, the TCI Weekend Workshops and Cal State/Los Angeles.
She has served on numerous association boards and has been a member of the USITT Fellows Make It So Task Force since 2007 which in 2020 successfully established the much-needed Design Resource Collection to be housed at California State
University/Los Angeles.