California/ What exactly do I do?

I'm in California!  For the first time!  We're staying the Avatar Hotel, which I've never heard of.  Contrary to previous thought, it looks nothing like Pandora.  But it is connected to an IHOP, with a Bennigan's adjacent.  IHOP, nay; Bennigan's, yea.  It's also pretty swanky, and has an outdoor pool surrounded by a few palm trees.  This hotel is about 7 miles from the theater, so the company has rentals cars for us, one car per four people.
                                                                      Avatar Hotel

You know, I get very entertained by the parents who take their kids down by the pit and try to explain to them what everything is.  Now, I'm not trying to be a high-and-mighty musician and make fun of peoples' lack of knowledge; I just get a kick out of what they say sometimes.  Many people look at all the guitars and call one of them a cello, or call the ukelele a violin.  Some people mistake almost any woodwind instrument for an oboe.  One of my favorites is when Jeff, our drummer, is practicing on a pad or something and people think he's actually drumming, but that the plexiglass shield is making it completely silent.

I believe people are most confused about my "instrument".  Granted, they ought to be.  Most people think that I mix the sound live or that I'm playing a synthesizer, which are admirable guesses.  When I tell people that it's where the strings, bass, double reeds, auxiliary percussion, and tons of other instruments come from, the magic suddenly dies in them and you'd think someone told them that there's no Santa Claus.  Sometimes, instead of explaining what it actually is, I tell them that I'm checking the band's Facebook pages and giving them live updates through their headphones, or that I'm leveling up my Ogre named Shrek in World of Warcraft and seeing how high I can get him by the end of the show.  Okay, I don't actually say these things, but it might be worth a try one of these days.

The best way I can put it is that I'm conducting the other dozens of instruments that you don't see in the pit.  The notes are their for Notion to play, and I'm simply giving it a tempo handed down to me by the music director.  Not too crazy.