Large gauge feeder cable and multi-core power cable are common sights at various concert, corporate, and touring events. If the person in charge of the live cable knows what they’re doing, you’ll always see this cable looped and stacked in a “figure eight” configuration as opposed to a standard coil. By running the cable in a figure eight, we’re creating two magnetic fields in opposite directions, thus canceling each other out. By doing so, we reduce the amount of heat created and keep the operating temperature of the cable at a nominal level. An added by-product of the figure eight is a reduction of radio frequency (RF) noise, which could create issues with DMX and audio lines.
-From Phil Gilbert's March Technopolis column
