I think it’s likely they were confused also by the physical connector - DMX can and often does use the same 5 pin connector as MIDI, if I’m not mistaken.
Nah, I was just wrong :-) I know a lot of big touring productions drive lighting and patch changes off the same clock (usually a laptop which provides time code, possibly backing tracks, and possibly patch changes for effects and synths), and misremembered that lighting typically used a different protocol even if it’s the same program driving everything.
