ACN
I have long been an advocate for ESTA's E1.17 "ACN" Standard, officially known as, "ANSI E1.17-2006, Entertainment Technology - Architecture for Control Networks (ACN)". I think this standard represents a great possible future for all sorts of entertainment control.
I have an introductory article explains the technology and talks about its potential here.
My book has a full chapter explaining ACN.
I also have blog entries related to the standard are available on the ACN tag here.