Hello Sarah
I am assuming that the lights you are using are either incandescent or halogen.
Surge arrestors can have quite a high leakage current and using 5 surge arresters is more lightly to cause an RCD to nuisance trip.
You would be better to use a simple lighting controller that has everything need to do the switching built in to one box. You do not mention which country you are from, I’m in the UK and a simple NJD Electronics EURO 4E lighting controller can be picked up new for under £40.
This 4 channel microprocessor based controller will handle a load of 920W resistive or 600W inductive per channel. It will either run a number of pre-programmed patters, do sound to light patterns or can be manually controlled.
NJD is just one manufacture from a number of companies out there that make entry lighting controllers.
If you do a search on ebay under “DJ Equipment” for “lighting controller” you will find plenty. Just remember that you want the type of controller that handles all the power switching internally.
i.e. Lighting controller — to — normal mains powered lights
This next bit is just so you are aware of a difference.
There is also a digital lighting control standard known as DMX which is more involved than what I have previously mentioned above. A DMX controller can only send commands to DMX enabled equipment.
i.e. DMX controller — to — DMX switcher and /or Dimmer — to — normal mains powered lights
(this setup using your existing lights would start from £100 for the DMX controller and DMX dimmer)
or DMX controller — to — DMX lights
(this setup would start from £300 for the DMX controller and DMX lights)
Regards
Andrew