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Lightswitch create images on Halsey tour with Chauvet’s Color Strike M

Multi-Grammy winner Halsey’s recent “For My Last Trick” tour concluded on July 6, 2025. The artists was intimately involved in creating the look for the 30-city tour - a look that interwove the dramatic expectations of theatre with the raw energy of rock and a rainbow of colors.

“‘My Last Trick’ was definitely a more theatrical than a typical tour”, says John Featherstone, who worked with his Lightswitch colleagues, Hailey Featherstone and Ignacio “Iggy” Rosenberg on lighting the show. “Given that there were multiple acts, it was important for Halsey and her team that there was a strong differentiation between each stage of the show we were in.”

“There were moments of real softness and emotion; raw, vulnerable emotion”, he continues. “Then there were moments of the badass rock’n’roll chick; and then there were moments of her talking about all the health struggles she went through and how that changed her as a person; becoming a mother, and how that affects everything. It was a balancing act of those different, really important viewpoints, and about making it feel cohesive. That’s always the biggest thing, stitching it all together.”

The Lightswitch team collaborated with Halsey and her manager/creative director Anothony Li, as well as scenic designer Derek McLane, cinematographers Joe Ranson and Nathan Amzi, LD Malcom Harrison, and programmer Anna Merritt. “Since the show was divided into theatrical and rock sections, we all got to show our individual styles”, says Rosenberg. “It was also incredibly refreshing to have such close conversation with an artist.”

In its theatrical section, the show relied heavily on the art of the reveal. The rig’s 22 Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorized strobe-washes (supplied by 3G Productions), which were positioned on the risers dotted around the band, and on the front truss, were instrumental in helping the designers achieve the desired effect.

“The band was mostly hidden behind a vanish wall during the first half of the show”, says Rosenberg. “We used the Strike Ms to start creeping them in as the act advanced. It let them pop through in moments so the audience could start to guess that there was ‘something else’ behind the LED wall. In the second act we used the Strike Ms as an uplight for the band, as well as another layer of audience lighting. We flipped them around to fill this dual role. We used them a lot more as whimsical accents on the theatrical first act. On the second act we kind of went all out, and they did a lot of ‘audience abuse’ so to speak.”

“They added punch and punctuation to the rig”, adds John Featherstone. “If the rig were a drum kit, the Strike Ms were our cymbals. Halsey also likes to really integrate her audience into the show - the twelve of these fixtures on the front truss brought the action and excitement out into the audience.” A big part of that excitement stemmed from the bold and vibrant monochromatic color scheme that often animated the stage. “I am by far a monochromatic designer”, declares Rosenberg. “We also had to think about our interplay with the set, video, and cameras, so helping keep the show homogeneous was a big part of that decision.”

Of course, the show also featured intriguing color combinations, such as the one that supported the song “Gasoline”, a moment that Featherstone and Rosenberg both cite as one of their favorites. “It had this amazing and counterintuitive mix of deep blood red, and a brittle gasoline green - truly remarkable”, says Featherstone. “It was definitely a moment where we wanted to get into the uncomfortable side of lighting”, adds Rosenberg. “The colors were all just a shade ‘off’, and when there were super bright moments it just barely broke white. It was also just at the cusp of being unbearably bright - and then it resolved. It’s always somewhat unsettling but it works. We also played with making these patterns on our rear wall that almost look like totems but they were so fast that most people only had a latent idea of them being there.”

As the designers point out, their client was deeply involved in the show’s transcendent color combinations. “Halsey has synesthesia, specifically chromesthesia, where she associates sounds with colors, so the stimulation of cognitive pathways for her leads to an involuntary experience in another”, explains Featherstone. “So, all this is very connected to her, not only the way that sound triggers color, but the way color triggers sound. It’s really quite fascinating.”

(Photos: Chauvet Professional)

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