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Whitney Hoversten dials up dynamism of Bruno Mars tour with Ayrton Rivale and Veloce Profiles

Bruno Mars’ first full global tour since 2018, “The Romantic Tour”, is about to leave British shores, having kicked off in April 2026 from Las Vegas on its first North American leg, before transferring to Europe throughout June and July. After a short break it returns to North America from August to December, clocking up 71 dates in all, with the prospect of extending far into 2027 and beyond.

It has become one of the biggest stadium tours of 2026, setting Live Nation’s record for the largest single-day ticket sale with 2.1 million tickets. Adding to the dynamism of Mars’ 30-song show are 212 Ayrton Rivale Profiles and forty Ayrton Veloce Profile fixtures, chosen by lighting designer Whitney Hoversten, who has worked with Mars for over ten years.

“We had the tricky task of devising a completely new rig that would be ready for anything, capable of expanding on old looks for the back catalogue and creating fresh new ones for the new numbers, many of which were created during rehearsals”, says Hoversten. Working closely with production manager Joel Forman and the lighting team, Hoversten developed and streamlined the lighting elements, integrating them into the set design.

The “Romantic” set is a highly mobile configuration comprising ten rotating truss pillars each rigged with fourteen Rivale Profiles, six of which track on and off stage behind Mars, and four non-tracking rotators that flank him either side of the stage. Two mini ladders - half size copies of the rotators - are located in downstage positions and rigged with seven Rivale Profiles. The set is constantly on the move, reshaping the performance space and following Mars’ movements like another performer in the troop.

Overhead, a circular video screen - named the Puck - is outlined with ten Rivale Profiles and four circular dynamic pods carry twelve Rivale Profiles on each. These change the shape of the performance space, provide dramatic surround lighting for drum solos, a multiplicity of aerial beam looks and an additional layer of texture and depth.

Upstage of the video wall are forty Veloce Profiles on ladders, spaced to mimic the rotators in front of them. These do everything the Rivales do, but with the added punch to get through the screen and augment the video content without revealing the lights behind or washing out the content.

The result completely surrounds and backs Mars within the proscenium area with active Ayrton fixtures integrated into the moving set. Hoversten’s lighting determines the shifting ambience, keeping pace with Mars as his music transitions from ballads and soulful grooves to retro-funk and rock.

“The Ayrton fixtures are a very dynamic part of our design”, states Hoversten. “We are using the majority of the feature sets: a lot of songs use gobos and animation wheels. You need big bold looks for stadiums, so we often use them open with narrow or wide beams, plus there’s a lot of dimmer effects and strobing. We even introduce the prisms at times - I doubt there is a feature in them that we are not using.”

Expanding on his criteria for choosing Rivale and Veloce Profiles, Hoversten says: “I’ve used Ayrton many time before but this is the first time I’ve used Rivale and Veloce. All our lighting choices were grounded in what was the best for the show, and gave us the most options. Weight and size were a huge consideration because of the size of the set, wind rating at the outdoor venues, and the dynamic load from the number of moving elements.”

“One of the most difficult engineering projects was the Puck that tracks up and down stage, and lowers to a vertical position with the weight hanging on just a couple of points”, he adds. “Rivale’s weight and compact size fitted the bill as well as the set, and were a major factor in our decision.”

“The reason we have the forty Veloces behind the video wall is they have the exact same features as Rivale”, Hoversten continues. “It was a great opportunity to combine the extra foot candles of Veloce with the exact same feature set as Rivale, giving us more punch to get through the video wall when needed.”

“We’ve ended up with a show that looks and feels massive and I’m super-happy”, he furthers. “Bruno was intensely involved in the whole creative process, sitting for fourteen hours a day for two and a half weeks with the programmers, articulating just how things look like in his mind as he wrote the music, what he wants it to feel like when he is performing on stage and translate across to the audience. He was so thrilled with the tools we had in the tool box and what they could do. It was such a fun process to help him put this show together and he is very happy with how things turned out.”

The Ayrton fixtures were supplied by the tour’s lighting vendor and long-time collaborator with the Bruno Mars camp, Fuse Technical Group. “The team at Fuse has supplied Bruno’s lighting for as long as they have existed as a company”, says Hoversten. “The support we receive from them is so important. We’ve had virtually the same lighting crew for ten years who are so committed to delivering a perfect show every night. We’ve all been working together for a long time now and it’s a well-oiled machine.”

Alongside Hoversten, the “The Romantic Tour” crew also includes lighting programmers Brian Jenkins and Eric Marchwinski, lighting crew chief Jorge “Soline” Velazquez, FOH tech Dominic “Dom” Hickman, network/spot tech Thomas “Poje” Poje, SR dimmer Tech Ryan Lecomte, and SL dimmer Tech Andrew Romoff, as well as LX stage techs Bryson Williams, Paul Mundrick, Juan “Tony” Velasquez, Michael “Mikey” Kitts and Jeremy Dehn, and LX delay techs Christopher Lanning, Christopher “Feo” Oliva, Timothy Moore and Jose Martinez.

The crew also comprises Brian Bassham (Stage Manager), James Harrelson (Head Rigger), Steve Fatone (Video Director), Gabrielle Martineau (Media Server Programmer), Xavier Bégin-Leblanc (Media Server Operator), Eric Taylor (Laser Programmer/Operator), Gregg Pearson (Pyro Shooter) and Joel Grover (Automation Operator).

Companies involved in this tour include Clair Global (sound) Pyrotek (pyro/SFX), Tait (staging and automation), Nighthawk (video), Vyv (media servers), Five Points Productions (rigging), Upstaging (trucking) and Early Bird Visual (design support and previz).

(Photos: Jean Nguyen & Ly Nguyen/Daniel Ramos)

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