Band lighting timing technology help needed?

Right, I'm a technology dunce and I need help. We use lights as part of our stage show, which we operate by a footswitch. I'm just wondering if/how to set the lights to a click track through our sampler. So the lights would go on at certain parts of the song for however long then off again without using the switch. I think it's all to do with MIDI but I'm pretty clueless! Any help at all would be appreciated!