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Thomas Edwards chooses Robert Juliat Dalis footlights for Raye arena tour
British singer-songwriter Raye embarked on her first ever headline arena tour with “This Tour May Contain New Music”, a 40+ date tour across Europe and North America lasting from January to May 2026. Production and lighting designer Thomas Edwards, of Panglowin, created a lighting design befitting Raye’s vocal splendour, which blends elements of jazz, pop, dance, R&B, and soul, whilst highlighting the singer’s glamorous on-stage presence.
To ensure Raye, her backing vocalists and their rich costumes were highlighted to best effect, Edwards specified nine Robert Juliat Dalis 864 footlights, evenly arrayed along the downstage edge in a continuous arrangement. “This positioning was very intentional, it allowed me to introduce a consistent and controlled uplight across the width of the performance space”, he explains. “The main objective behind this was to enhance the visual impact of Raye and the backing vocalists’ dresses while they were performing.”
“The costumes featured a high level of intricate detailing, textures, embellishments, and layered fabrics that would often become flattened or lost entirely under conventional front lighting”, he continues. “By bringing light in from a low, frontal angle using a linear fixture like Dalis, I was able to reintroduce depth and definition into those details, ensuring they translated clearly to both the live audience and camera.”
“Specifying these fixtures wasn’t just about adding another lighting position; it was about solving a visual problem in a deliberate and elegant way”, Edwards furthers. “Traditional front light tends to prioritise visibility of faces, which is obviously essential, but it can compromise the dimensionality of costumes. The downstage linear uplight acted as a complementary system; subtle enough not to overpower the key light, but strong enough to lift texture and create a more sculpted, dynamic look overall. It became a crucial layer within the broader lighting design.”
Edwards opted for the four-colour Dalis 864 to retain maximum flexibility throughout the show: “With multiple costume changes for Raye and the backing vocalists across different songs, it was important that the lighting could adapt seamlessly to each new look”, he says. “Having precise colour control meant we could fine-tune hues to either match or contrast with the wardrobe, depending on the mood we wanted to create. In softer moments, this allowed for delicate, sympathetic tones that enhanced the garments naturally, while in more energetic or stylised sections, we could push into deeper, more saturated colours to heighten the visual intensity.”
As the tour’s lighting, audio, video and rigging vendor, Solotech supplied and toured the Dalis 864 fixtures on a dedicated dolly system which meant they could be pre-rigged and quickly deployed onto the rolling stage each day with minimal setup time. The tour also featured a substantial camera package, capturing the performance from multiple angles, which introduced an additional layer of consideration in the lighting design.
Strong footlight from the downstage fixtures played an important role here, adding dimensionality to the performers on camera. “Without it, faces and costumes can appear flat when primarily lit from above or the front”, notes Edwards. “The uplight helped separate the performers from the background and gave a more sculpted, three-dimensional quality on screen.”
“The colour temperature of our key lighting for the performers varied depending on the look and feel of each section, typically ranging between 4300 K, 4800 K, 5600 K, and 6000 K”, he concludes. “Having fixtures like the Dalis allowed us to closely match or complement these temperatures. This was particularly important for maintaining consistency within the camera workflow, especially when working with log profiles and LUT-based colour grading. By ensuring that the uplight integrated seamlessly with the key light, we were able to preserve accurate skin tones and costume colours on camera, while still achieving the desired artistic effect.”
(Photos: KG Shoots/Aliyah Otchere)
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