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Lorde’s touring team chooses DPA and Wisycom
17/09/2026
„Reggae Land“-Hauptbühne mit 500 X-PAR 12Z von GLP bestückt
Beim „Reggae Land“-Festival in der Milton Keynes National Bowl nordwestlich von London kamen 500 GLP X-PAR 12Z auf einer einzigen Bühne zum Einsatz. Die Scheinwerfer wurden hinter Videoflächen „versteckt“, die an den Ecken aufklappten und sie freilegten. So hatte an zwei Tagen mit insgesamt 100.000 Besuchern jeder Act auf der Hauptbühne seine eigene Lichtshow, auch bei vollem Tageslicht.
„Strahlend blauer Himmel, brütende Hitze - und trotzdem hatten wir eine Lichtshow“, berichtet Nick Jevons, Lichtdesigner und Mitgründer des zuständigen Designstudios Auratecture. Auratecture ist das Licht- und Produktionsdesignstudio von Ross Chapple und Nick Jevons. Es hat sich auf stilistisch markante, designorientierte Bühnenkonzepte für Konzerte, Tourneen und Live-Events spezialisiert und geht das Lichtdesign aus architektonischer Perspektive an: Form, Gestalt und Narrativ bilden das Rückgrat jeder Arbeit.
Jevons ist seit mehr als drei Jahrzehnten als Lichtdesigner tätig. Er begann als Tour-LD, bevor er sich auf Festival- und Corporate-Design verlegte. Chapple lernte das Handwerk in Jevons’ eigener Produktionsfirma und gestaltete anschließend acht Jahre lang die Shows von Eric Prydz. Seit einigen Jahren arbeiten die beiden bei Auratecture wieder zusammen.
Die Veranstalter von „Reggae Land“ kamen mit einem klaren Auftrag. Nach sechs bis acht Jahren hatte sich das Festival auf einem bestimmten Niveau eingependelt, und 2026 sollte einen echten Schritt nach vorn markieren. Jevons und Chapple reagierten darauf mit rund achtzig Prozent mehr Videofläche und der doppelten Anzahl an Scheinwerfern.
Jevons selbst kannte das Festival vorher nicht. „Dabei ist es inzwischen das größte Reggae-Festival der Welt“, sagt er. „Wir hatten zwei Tage, beide ausverkauft. Die Veranstalter wollten, dass wir das Ganze auf ein neues Level heben, und genau das haben wir getan.“ Auratecture schlug keine Bühne vor, auf der Technik steht, sondern ein einziges, in sich geschlossenes Objekt.
„Wir wollten etwas Großes, Mutiges, das wirklich heraussticht“, so Jevons. „Schon bevor es eingeschaltet ist, soll man davorstehen und denken: ‘Wow, sieht das gut aus - ich kann es kaum erwarten, das im Dunkeln zu sehen!’ Die Idee war, dass sich das Video von den Bühnenseiten her ‘abschält’ und riesige Lichtflächen freilegt. Man trägt eine Schicht nach der anderen ab, und hinter jeder kommt etwas anderes zum Vorschein.“
Hinter diesen sich lösenden „Video-Schichten“ saßen die GLP X-PAR 12Z. Das IMAG lief nicht wie üblich über 16:9-Screens links und rechts der Bühne; stattdessen spannte sich eine durchgehende Videofläche über die gesamte Breite, reichte von der Oberkante bis zum Bühnenboden, legte sich um die Bühne herum und setzte sich nach hinten fort. Wo das Video an den Ecken zurückwich, kamen dicht an dicht die Scheinwerfer zum Vorschein. Dasselbe Prinzip übertrug Auratecture auf die vier Delay-Türme im Bowl: Video, Scheinwerfer und PA-Hänge verschmolzen dort zu einer einzigen umhüllten Struktur.
Für Jevons ist genau das der Punkt, an dem man von Produktionsdesign sprechen kann. „Alle Elemente einer Produktion waren zu einem stimmigen, schönen Ganzen verbunden, fürs Auge wie fürs Ohr“, sagt er. „Viel zu oft buhlen die Gewerke um Aufmerksamkeit. Hier war alles aus einem Guss.“
Dass es 500 Scheinwerfer brauchte und nicht nur einen Bruchteil davon, liegt am Tageslicht. Bei einem Festival dieser Länge spielt nur der Headliner in völliger Dunkelheit. Der Act davor bekommt davon vielleicht noch zwanzig Minuten ab. Alle anderen stehen in der Sonne auf der Bühne.
„Die Herausforderung lautete: Wie bekommt man auf einem Festival tagsüber eine Lichtshow hin?“, erklärt Jevons. „Die meisten Acts treten bei Tageslicht auf. Video ist so hell und kraftvoll, dass die Scheinwerfer direkt daneben genauso hell sein mussten, um mithalten zu können. Wir wollten eine dicht bestückte Fläche voller Scheinwerfer, und die musste auch am Tag wirken.“
Die Scheinwerfer liefen durchgehend mit maximalem Zoom, über die gesamte Fläche zogen sich Farbverläufe. „Es ging nicht um die Beams, sondern um die Farben“, so Jevons. „Mit dem Haze verschmolzen sie zu einer einzigen Farbmasse, genau diese Sättigung wollten wir. Und es hat einfach funktioniert. Es war unglaublich hell.“
Zwei weitere GLP Scheinwerfer rundeten das Bild ab. Der Impression X5 lieferte aus Trimmhöhen von 13 bis 14 Metern den Haupt-Wash auf der Bühne, mit genug Leistung, um sich gegen die Videowand im Hintergrund durchzusetzen. JDC Burst 1 säumten den gesamten Catwalk und dienten dort nicht nur als Strobes, sondern auch als Washlights. Tagsüber waren sie ins Publikum gekippt, ihre Plate-Effekte fügten sich ins Gesamtdesign ein. Nach Einbruch der Dunkelheit wurden sie zurück auf die Bühne gerichtet und leuchteten die Acts aus, wenn diese sich über den Steg ins Publikum bewegten.
Das Festival, für das PRG das Equipment lieferte, lief laut GLP nahezu störungsfrei, lediglich zwei der 500 X-PAR 12Z mussten ausgetauscht werden. Im kommenden Jahr soll Auratecture nicht nur die Hauptbühne, sondern das gesamte Festival gestalten.
(Fotos: NJ Designs)
Chris Lisle turns to Elation for three major summer events
Nashville-based lighting designer Chris Lisle put Elation lighting to work across three different summer projects, using the fixtures to create distinctive visual environments at Perry’s Stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago, the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival in Irvine, California, and Nashville’s massive July 4 celebration.
A veteran of the lighting industry, Lisle has increasingly focused on festival work, particularly through C3 Presents, where he moves between large-scale house rigs and more creatively driven projects. His task is to design a rig that works for multiple artists, multiple lighting designers, and sometimes multiple music styles. And while many festival stages require relatively standard rigs that can accommodate a succession of visiting artists’ lighting designers, certain projects allow him to design something more custom.
At this year’s Lollapalooza, which took place July 30-August 2 in Chicago’s Grant Park, Lisle designed the rig for Perry’s Stage, the festival’s large electronic and dance music stage. Unlike the festival’s two main stages, which need to remain relatively generic to accommodate numerous headlining artists and their production teams, Perry’s gave Lisle considerably more creative freedom.
“When I have the opportunity to do something custom and fun, I can start thinking about the architecture of the rig, how I can fill the space, and how I can create something that gives the artists and their lighting designers a lot to work with”, he says. “For me, Perry’s is one of my favorite stages to do every year. It’s one of those places where I really get to have a budget to do fun shapes with truss and architecture and be creative. I can fill up that space without having to accommodate headliners and their supplemental production.”
One defining element of the 2026 design was an overhead structure Lisle dubbed “Podzilla” - a large central pod incorporating smaller mini-pods. He positioned twelve Elation Proteus Brutus fixtures at the points of the structure, giving the stage a powerful aerial element, while also giving visiting lighting designers opportunities to interpret the fixtures in their own ways.
“I wanted something up there that would have this big accent and some real horsepower when needed”, Lisle says of the 75,000-lumen Brutus, an LED wash FX fixture that he has often used on other projects. “With these festival rigs, you don’t always have the opportunity for that kind of fixture. A lot of them are just a spot, a wash, a strobe, a blinder and done. But anytime I can really do something creative, I like to put some big aerial stuff out there, and that’s what that Brutus is for.”
The Proteus Brutus fixtures, which 4Wall supplied, ultimately became one of the more versatile elements of the Perry’s Stage rig. Some visiting lighting designers used them for punchy beam looks, while others positioned their programming around the DJ and used the fixtures as part of the stage’s key lighting.
“That’s the unique thing about being in my role”, says Lisle. “I can design the rig and have a vision for how I would program it and execute it during a show, but at the end of the day you have twenty different lighting designers coming into that rig. They each put their own creative spin on it, and the Brutus gave them another tool to work with.”
Lisle brought the same design philosophy to the inaugural Daisy Chain Fields festival, founded by Olivia Rodrigo and produced by C3 Presents at Great Park in Irvine on August 29. The one-day festival featured two stages and a lineup of women-led artists, including Sarah McLachlan, Stevie Nicks, and surprise guest Alanis Morissette, with net proceeds benefiting organizations supporting women and girls.
For the festival’s main stage, Lisle designed a highly customized lighting rig around an equally distinctive scenic environment. The stage was wrapped in pink mesh fabric, with a series of button-like elements across the fascia. The opening in the mesh created a large arch, which Lisle echoed through the lighting architecture.
“The scenic really defines that stage”, he says. “There were these buttons along the fascia, and mesh fabric covered the downstage front and upstage, creating this defining arch. That gave us some really fun architecture to play with and light around.”
Lisle created downstage and upstage trusses connected by a series of finger trusses, creating a large-scale arch of lighting fixtures. The rig incorporated fifty-six Elation Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures, with additional Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures positioned on vertical ladders on the wings. Forty Rayzor Blade L linear battens ran along 120 feet of the downstage edge.
Six different LDs came through the stage, each interpreting the Proteus Hybrid Max fixtures differently. “It can be a wash, a beam or a spot fixture, so that everybody could use it in a different way”, says Lisle. “For me, the fixtures formed this whole arch of light that looked really nice, but the visiting LDs could take that same rig and make it their own.” PRG supplied the lighting for the Daisy Chain Fields festival.
Another major summer project brought a different challenge for Lisle. For Nashville’s July 4 celebration, he served as production manager and designed the site’s lighting, extending the visual impact well beyond a conventional stage environment. The 2026 “Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th” celebration spanned downtown Nashville, with activity centered around Nissan Stadium and the Cumberland River.
Lisle used Elation fixtures throughout the event to illuminate major architectural elements across the city. At Nissan Stadium, twelve Proteus Excalibur fixtures provided aerial beams, while fifty-two Paladin LED wash fixtures illuminated the underside of the stadium. On the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge, sixteen Proteus Maximus fixtures created another layer of aerial impact. A further twelve Proteus Maximus fixtures and forty-eight Paladin fixtures lit buildings along Broadway and added large-scale architectural lighting.
“Here we were really trying to paint architecture with light”, Lisle explains. “Whether it was the underside of the stadium, the pedestrian bridge, or the buildings along Broadway, we were using the light to define those structures and then using the Excaliburs and Maximus to put the big beam looks into the air.”
The effect was particularly important for the event’s aerial photography, helping connect the different illuminated locations into a cohesive nighttime image. “When we did our helicopter and drone shots, we wanted those beam looks coming down Broadway, off the pedestrian bridge and off the stadium”, he says. “You had all these beams around you, so it made the whole city feel like part of the show.” Bandit Lites supplied the Elation lighting for Nashville’s July 4th celebration.
(Photos: 4Wall/Chris Lisle)
Chauvet Professional PXL Curve 1 helps Never Fear Shadows set mood at “Zomerhit”
Michiel Milbou and his team at Never Fear Shadows created the lighting and set design for Belgian national broadcaster VRT’s “Zomerhit 2026” show. Set in a half disc stage, evoking images of a summer sun, the design’s warm, welcoming look embodied the spirit of the season.
“For ‘Zomerhit’, the lighting needed to support the summer identity of the show from the very first glance”, says Milbou. “Because this was a televised summer music program, I wanted the design to feel warm, open, festive and instantly recognizable, both for the live audience and on camera.”
“A central part of that vision was to create a strong visual element at the back of the stage that suggested a setting sun”, he continues. “That image immediately connected with the atmosphere of summer and gave the show a clear visual signature. From there, the lighting had to do more than just illuminate the artists - it also had to help shape the stage picture, add depth for television, and give every performance its own energy and character.”
The lighting design also had to have the flexibility needed to reflect the stage personas and music styles of the range of artists who appeared on stage, while still projecting a single unified look. Also, because the event was televised, the lighting had to translate well on camera. “A look can feel powerful in the venue, but it also has to read clearly and attractively from different camera angles”, notes Milbou. “We were constantly looking for ways to create bold stage images without losing clarity or making the picture feel too busy.”
Helping Milbou and the Never Fear Shadows team achieve these goals was a collection of 122 Chauvet Professional Colorado PXL Curve 1 arrayable batten fixtures, which, like his entire rig, were supplied by Splendit. Positioned on the large half disc structure at the back of the stage, the compact quad color fixtures played wide variety roles during “Zomerhit”.
“They were much more than just lighting fixtures - they became a scenic and graphic element within the overall stage design”, says Milbou. “This helped us solve an important visual challenge: creating a strong and iconic backdrop that was recognizable at all times, while still being flexible enough to evolve throughout the show.”
“The ‘sun’ shape gave us a clear visual anchor, but that same structure could constantly change in color, intensity and movement to suit each performance”, furthers Milbou. “This meant that the backdrop was never static - depending on the song, it could feel warm and atmospheric, bold and energetic, or highly dynamic, while always preserving the core visual identity of the set. What I liked most about the PXL Curve 1 was that it helped us combine lighting and scenography in one gesture. They gave us the freedom to keep changing that image throughout the program. For a music television show, that combination is extremely valuable.”
Although the PXL Curve 1 anchored the show, it was not the only Chauvet Professional fixture in Milbou’s toolbox. His design also featured six Colorado Q15 battens, thirty-three Rogue Outcast 1 BeamWashes, six Color Strike Ms, two OnAir Panel 1 IP units, and four Amhaze atmospheric effects.
(Photos: Chauvet Professional)
Ayrton Cobras illuminate Brussels Flower Carpet
The Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium, a UNESCO world heritage site, hosted the biennial Flower Carpet for the 24th time on August 13-18, 2026. Over 700,000 brightly coloured flowers were laid out in a pattern inspired by an artwork by Katsushika Kokusai, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”, which was reimagined by Japanese artist Hiro Sugiyama to mark the 160th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Belgium.
Measuring 1,680 sqm and installed by 100 volunteers in just six hours, the world’s largest flower carpet was open to the public for only four days. Each evening visitors were treated to a sound and light show which played four times and was designed by production company Artfex. Lighting designer Geoffrey Oelbrandt used thirty Ayrton Cobra fixtures as part of the light show to create undulating sweeps across the facades of the historic architecture that surrounds the Grand Place, sending beams of light far into the night sky, creating geometric shapes and sweeping across the multicoloured surface of the Flower Carpet itself.
“The Brussels Flower Carpet is such an iconic event, and the Grand-Place provides a spectacular but also technically challenging environment for a light show”, says Oelbrandt. “Our intention was not simply to illuminate the Flower Carpet but to extend the visual experience beyond the carpet itself and use the entire Grand-Place as part of the show.”
“The Flower Carpet is naturally the central visual element but it sits within one of the most recognisable architectural environments in Europe”, he continues. “We therefore wanted the lighting to connect the carpet, the historic facades and the sky above the square. The Cobras were an important part of achieving that, their beams allowing us to take the show vertically into the sky and visually expand the scale of the production far beyond the physical dimensions of the carpet.”
He also notes that the aerial effects they created with the Cobras remained “clearly visible and defined even when working across the full dimensions of the square”. The fixtures were positioned at ground level around the Flower Carpet and integrated into the technical layout. From these positions they projected upwards and across the Grand-Place with the surrounding facades and the open sky, effectively becoming part of the visual canvas.
“Depending on the position and programming, we were working with substantial throw distances across the square and towards the upper sections of the surrounding architecture”, details Oelbrandt. “With thirty units we were able to create a large-scale composition rather than simply using the fixtures as individual beams. This allowed us to work with symmetry, movement, layers and large architectural looks that matched the scale of the square and the Flower Carpet itself and gave us the ability to build from subtle architectural moments into much larger and more spectacular looks during the show.”
The Cobra fixtures were supplied by Rent-All Europe with whom Artfex has a long-standing relationship. “Rent-All has been a loyal and trusted partner of Artfex for many years and supports our productions throughout Europe”, says Oelbrandt. “This partnership is particularly important to the way we work as a company. Because we don’t want our creative or technical choices to be dictated by what is available in our own warehouse, we rely on partners who can provide us with the right equipment for each individual production.”
Pictured: the Artfex build and production team - Karl, Dieter, Simon, Geoffrey, Jonathan, Joren, Arne, Ken (left to right). (Photos: Fabian De Backer/Mastershoot)
Ton:Media beschallt RÜ Oktoberfest mit dBTechnologies
Das RÜ Oktoberfest ging 2026 in seine dreizehnte Ausgabe. Im achtzig Meter langen und dreißig Meter breiten Festzelt auf dem Gelände des Flughafens Essen/Mülheim feierten bis zu 4.000 Gäste auf 2.400 Quadratmetern. Im Festzelt sorgte ein Vio-System von dBTechnologies, ergänzt durch IG-Säulen, für Live- und DJ-Sound.
Für die Beschallung war Ton:Media aus Mülheim zuständig. Zum Einsatz kam ein System aus sieben Lautsprechertypen von dBTechnologies: Vio-208-Line-Array-Module als Main Hang, Vio-S118R-Subwoofer in Cardioid-Anordnung, Vio-Point-Source-Modelle für Sidefill, Nahfeld und erste Delayline sowie Säulenlautsprecher der IG-Serie für die hinteren Zonen, die Logen und das Terrassenzelt.
Die Lage des Zelts machte die Aufgabe anspruchsvoll. Das Flughafengelände liegt erhöht, mit verstärktem Windaufkommen, sodass sich in den vergangenen Jahren Anwohner nach 22 Uhr von der Musik gestört fühlten. Für 2026 galt eine Genehmigung bis Mitternacht mit strengen Auflagen: Ein Sachverständiger maß an jedem Veranstaltungstag dreimal an fünf festgelegten Orten, dokumentierte die Werte und ließ die Pegel je nach Windverhältnissen anpassen.
Die Vorgabe des Veranstalters BRT Event GmbH für das Festzelt zielte in die andere Richtung: druckvoller Live- und Discosound auf der gesamten Fläche, aber in einem Rahmen, in dem sich die Gäste am Tisch noch unterhalten konnten. Das Programm reichte von Live-Acts wie Teddy Schmacht und den Original Rüttenscheidern bis zu DJ-Sets von DJ Picco B. und Wiesn Beats x DJ Fishi.
Die Bühne befand sich in der Zeltmitte und beschallte das Zelt in einem 360-Grad-Radius. Akustisch wurde im Zelt vorgearbeitet. Der Zelthimmel war vollständig mit Molton und Stoff bespannt, und die belastbare Trägerstruktur bot genügend Hängepunkte für Lasten und Lautsprecher.
Vier Hangs mit je vier Vio L208 beschallten links und rechts der Bühne die beiden Längsachsen des Zelts. Je ein Vio-X206-Lautsprecher übernahm pro Seite das Nahfeld. Die zwölf Vio-S118R-Subwoofer standen in vier Dreiergruppen mit derselben Abstrahlrichtung wie die Line Arrays; das mittlere Element jeder Gruppe war gedreht und erzeugte so eine Cardioid-Charakteristik, die den Tieftonanteil hinter den Gruppen reduzierte.
Mit wachsendem Abstand zur Bühne übernahmen gestaffelte Delaylines. Die erste bestand aus 2 x 2 Vio X310, dahinter folgte eine zweite Linie mit 4 x 2 IG2. Weitere sechs IG2 versorgten die Logen an der Längsseite, vier IG3 das angeschlossene Terrassenzelt. Auf der Bühne arbeitete Ton:Media ohne Wedges. Vier Vio X12 hingen als Sidefills an Bügeln neben der Bühne, das übrige Monitoring lief über In-Ear.
Das System wurde vorab von Christian Strehl, Sales Application Engineer Install bei dBTechnologies, in Ease Focus simuliert und vor Ort mit Smaart V8 von Daniel Wierczeiko eingemessen. Alle RDNet-fähigen Komponenten waren direkt ins Netzwerk eingebunden, die IG-Säulen wurden über zwei AD26-Prozessoren per RDNet angesteuert. Überwacht und gesteuert wurde das System mit Aurora Net. Zwischen den Veranstaltungstagen passte das Team nur noch die Lautstärken an, die Abstimmung selbst blieb unverändert.
„Der im Vorfeld investierte Aufwand in Planung und Simulation hat sich voll ausgezahlt“, resümiert Paul Otto, Geschäftsführer von Ton:Media und verantwortlich für das Projekt.
(Fotos: dBTechnologies/Sascha Gansen)
Meplan gestaltet Gastronomieflächen der Expo Real 2026
Für die Expo Real 2026 in München hat die Meplan GmbH ein umfassendes Gastronomiekonzept entwickelt und realisiert und dafür ihr mit dem German Design Award ausgezeichnetes Messedesignkonzept Woodi genutzt.
Woodi steht für ein modulares Konzept für Messepräsentationen nach den Prinzipien der Donut-Ökonomie, mit dem sich auf Basis des Wirtschaftsmodells von Kate Raworth Messestände, Gemeinschaftsflächen, Hospitality-Bereiche und Sonderflächen flexibel planen, mehrfach nutzen und an unterschiedliche Anforderungen anpassen lassen.
Im Mittelpunkt der Gastronomieflächen für die Expo Real, die vom 5. bis 7. Oktober 2026 auf dem Gelände der Messe München stattfand, stand ein Roof Garden, für den Meplan Raumgestaltung, mediale Inszenierung und eigens entwickelte Produkte zu einem ganzheitlichen Erlebnis verband. Das Konzept kombinierte flexible Möbel, gezielte Beleuchtung und digitale Inhalte zu einem Gesamtsystem, das individuelle Änderungen der Gestaltung immer wieder neu ermöglichte.
Die Fläche gliederte sich in eine Cozy Lounge, eine Green Lounge, eine Community Area und eine Service Area. Pflanzen und durchlässige Raumtrenner schufen unterschiedliche Zonen für Aufenthalt, Erholung und Kommunikation. Ein passend dazu entwickeltes Lichtkonzept verdichtete die Atmosphäre im Roof Garden mit warmem Grundlicht, Gobo-Projektionen und gezielten Beleuchtungsakzenten und setzte mit einer tageszeitabhängigen Lichtdimmung weitere optische Schwerpunkte. „Das macht den Unterschied zu ‘konventionellen’ Messeflächen: Wir kreieren einen Raum, der möglichst alle Sinne anspricht und so seine Wirkung verstärkt“, sagt Sebastian Hoppe von Meplan.
Die vier Leitbegriffe „Breathe“, „Connect“, „Perspective“ und „Activate“ standen für die zentralen Möglichkeiten des Raums: Erholung, Austausch, neue Perspektiven und Aktivierung. Sie bildeten zugleich die Grundlage für die räumliche Dramaturgie und die Customer Journey.
Auch die Medieninszenierung war ein integraler Bestandteil des Konzepts. Auf den Leinwänden wurden KI-generierte Inhalte dramaturgisch passend zum Leitmotiv Roof Garden ausgespielt. Mithilfe künstlicher Intelligenz und gezielt formulierter Prompts entstanden dafür cineastische Clips, deren Umsetzung laut Meplan mit klassischen Produktionsmethoden sowohl kosten- als auch zeitintensiver gewesen wären.
Die Expo Real 2026 spiegelte auch die Zusammenarbeit zwischen Meplan und dem Designmöbel-Hersteller Rolf Benz wider: Die gemeinsam mit Rolf Benz unter Berücksichtigung Meplan-definierter Prinzipien entwickelten Möbel trafen für das Roof-Garden-Konzept auf die modulare Systemlogik von Woodi. Produkt und Fläche verstand Meplan dabei als zusammenhängendes System.
(Fotos: Meplan)
Pierre E. Roy molds looks to fit thirteen Rock La Cauze acts with Chauvet
Lighting designer Pierre E. Roy ran the shows for thirteen of the seventeen bands that performed at three-day Rock La Cauze 2026 outdoor festival, a fundraising event that took place at the spacious Parc Terre-des-Jeunes in Victoriaville, Canada.
Roy set up the festival rig and ran it for all but four of the festival’s headliners (Killswitch Engage, I Prevail, Machine Head, and Hollywood Undead brought visiting LDs), lending his skills to bands including August Burns Red, as well as a mix of punk, rock, metalcore, alternative rock, and local Québécois acts. The rig featured Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by DGM Sonorisation in Victoriaville.
Roy polled the visiting LDs before setting up his festival rig. “I reviewed each band’s technical rider to get as close as possible to their own touring rig”, he explains. “I also designed the rig so it could be cloned easily. This way, when the visiting LDs arrived it was quick and easy for them to adapt their show. Time is a major factor at a festival since we don’t have much time between bands.”
“As far as the fixtures I selected go, the Chauvet Maverick MK1 Hybrids, Colorado Solos, Color Strike Ms, and Rogue Outcast 1s in FOH are all well-known fixtures among LDs”, continues Roy. “This means that there weren’t many concerns or surprises.”
Fixture placement was a key part of Roy’s plan to create a versatile rig. He arranged his twenty-two Maverick MK1 units in pairs across the rig and let them fill a variety of roles. His Colorado units were placed SL and SR to be used for side washing. The Color Strike Ms in the rig were flow four-each on three stage trusses to provide crowd lighting, side lighting and specials.
(Photos: Chicks Rock Media)
L-Acoustics DJ makes its European festival debut at Nameless
Nameless Festival began in 2013 as a party thrown by a group of friends at the Bione sports centre in Lecco, on a single stage. Thirteen years and three home venues later, it returned to the same ground as one of Italy’s defining electronic music events, featuring four stages, more than 100 artists and 90,000 festival-goers across three days from May 30 to June 1, 2026.
With Calvin Harris, John Summit and Fisher headlining, the 2026 edition carried two firsts for the festival’s audio. The Red Bull Energy Zone became the first festival stage in Europe with an L-Acoustics DJ spatial sound system, and every stage on site was powered by L-Acoustics.
The decision to unify came from Nameless production director Angelo Loizzi. The festival supplies its own front of house and system engineers, so the specification came from the people who would operate it. Delivering that brief fell to two partners with distinct roles. L-Acoustics Certified Provider Milano Show Rent supplied the systems and crewed all five stages. Technical and lighting designer Nico Berna of Black Box, also an L-Acoustics partner, handled the stage and coverage design with Nameless production’s Jacopo Naso.
Both companies had already worked with the Nameless team at smaller festivals earlier in the year. “At Nameless 2026, our partnership with the team scaled up”, says Amaury Froiio, project manager and owner at Milano Show Rent. “We were delighted to take on the full, five-stage AVL production entirely in-house.”
The Red Bull Energy Zone, headlined by Defected, Glitterbox and Crunch, had been conceived as an in-the-round dance floor rather than a conventional end-on stage, and Loizzi saw an opening in that geometry. “Our audience comes for house and club music, and that music is built to be felt from every direction”, he says. “Once we decided the Red Bull Energy Zone would be in the round, a stereo system no longer made sense for it.”
The floor and its ring truss came from the production team’s own design, and the audio layout followed it. Working to Berna’s stage design, Milano Show Rent and L-Acoustics sound engineer Rafael Pereira developed a system for the 16 m diameter circular truss, with six towers carrying both the audio and the lighting rigs and wrapping the floor in a fully spatialised listening experience rather than pushing sound from one direction. “The floor and the ring were already the plan when we came in”, says Froiio. “Our job, with Rafael, was to make that shape sound the way it looked. That is the space we put L-Acoustics DJ into.”
Bione was familiar ground, but not at this scale, so the site had to be surveyed as if it were new. A run of buildings directly behind the main stage had to be kept out of the coverage pattern, which was one of the reasons the main hangs used K1 over K1-SB, with subs in cardioid configuration.
With no usable position for delay towers anywhere in the main field, the full depth of the audience area had to be covered from the stage itself. The Nameless Tent presented the opposite problem: it faced the main stage across the site, so spill had to be controlled in both directions, while the tent structure’s load capacity ruled out heavy flown hangs.
The audio crew worked inside a 10-day build shared with structure contractor Stageco, installing all five systems over two days and taking them out in a single night. Soundvision underpinned that schedule. The design flow began in vector drawings and SketchUp, which Berna’s team passed to System Engineer Luigi Vargiolo, who built the Soundvision files for three stages. Those files became the shared reference for the whole audio crew, and for visiting artists’ engineers.
“We had eight people on the audio crew this year, and every one of them is a good Soundvision user”, says Berna. “We share the file, we meet briefly before load-in, and everybody can see their own part of the project. It speeds up load-in and load-out, and it is where we start when we fine-tune for wind and weather on site.”
Each stage was designed around its own footprint, load limits and programme. The main, Ploom Stage, home to the three headliners, was built on twelve K1 and 2 K2 down per side below six K1-SB which extended the line to better control low frequency over the audience. Additional KS28 subwoofers - forty-eight in all, in cardioid configuration - were groundstacked across the stage front to add bass punch.
The Live stage carried hangs of four K1-SB with twelve K2 each side, and sixteen groundstacked KS28 subs. The Garnier Fructis Arena, the rap, urban and pop stage, boasted ten K2 per side, with sixteen cardioid-configured, groundstacked KS28. The Red Bull Energy Zone ran Kara II and A15 across the seven arrays in the LA DJ set up, on the 16 m ring, with eight KS28 on the low end, while the Heineken Stage, an open platform where the public could book slots on the consoles, used a scaled-down Kara II and A15 rig.
Kara II and SB18 handled monitoring on every stage, and the whole site ran on LA12X amplified controllers. In total, more than eighty K2 and over 100 KS28 joined the twenty-four K1 across the five stages.
Pictured (left to right): William Procopio (Milano Show Rent), Nicola Procopio (Milano Show Rent), Laurent Vaissié (L-Acoustics), Amaury Froiio (Milano Show Rent), Mattia Procopio (Milano Show Rent). (Photos: L-Acoustics)
Genelec Smart IP shapes new immersive exhibition at Finlandia Hall in Helsinki
Designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, Finlandia Hall was commissioned as Helsinki’s concert and congress building back in 1962. During a major renovation of the building’s infrastructure between 2022 and 2025, the idea emerged to open Finlandia Hall more widely to locals and tourists.
“Visions of Alvar Aalto”, an immersive exhibition detailing Aalto’s creativity and influence on Finnish architecture and design, was conceived to give visitors a new reason to visit Finlandia Hall while drawing greater attention to its architectural heritage. A Genelec Smart IP loudspeaker system was selected to support the evolving exhibition environment with audio.
Finlandia Hall’s technical team was tasked with developing an experience that would emotionally engage guests. “The concept was to create an exhibition that showcases Aalto’s work while giving visitors something meaningful to take away for themselves”, says Ilari Suonpää, Technical Manager at Finlandia Hall. “Technology, particularly audio, would therefore play a crucial role in creating an immersive soundscape that complements and enhances the visual exhibit.”
Immersive audio and content specialist Aki Päivärinne of OiOi Collective was approached by the exhibition’s architect and technical team to join the project as lead sound designer. “I wanted to achieve a balanced soundscape that keeps visitors immersed as they move through Aalto’s story”, explains Päivärinne.
The sound system needed to translate Päivärinne’s sonic vision into reality as well as support the overall exhibition design. Audio-visual integration specialist 4Business Oy was enlisted to carry out the physical installation. “When the space was being renovated, the exhibition layout had not been finalised”, notes Nathan Hayward, Project Manager at 4Business. “A flexible cabling and deployment system was essential to accommodate the evolving plans and to allow future scalability.”
“I recommended Genelec Smart IP to the Finlandia technical team”, says Päivärinne. The choice of Genelec Smart IP loudspeakers was driven not only by their sonic performance but also by their ability to integrate seamlessly into the exhibition’s architectural language. Across the installation, forty-seven powerful 4430 loudspeakers blend into each environment, utilising Genelec’s custom RAL colour options to match each zone, while seven 4436 pendant models become part of the visual aesthetic, reflecting Aalto’s own approach to light, space, and materiality.
“In a space called ‘Power of Light’, the sound of piano chords mimics dancing rays of light”, continues Päivärinne. “It seemed a clear aesthetic choice to use Genelec’s pendant Smart IP loudspeakers here as they distribute sound into the room in the same manner as Aalto’s light concepts.” Suspended from the ceiling, the 4436 pendants create an intimate listening experience with their downward-firing design directing the soundscape towards visitors below.
Across the remaining exhibition zones, 4430 Smart IP loudspeakers form the foundation of Päivärinne’s spatial audio design, with custom RAL colours matching each space. In “Prelude”, five Cobalt Blue (RAL 5013) 4430s deliver Jean Sibelius’ “Finlandia”. Nine Tarpaulin Grey (RAL 7010) 4430s create a transition with flowing creek and woodland sounds, leading to “Land of Forests”, where eleven Black 4430s deliver a calming forest soundscape. In “Together”, eighteen Traffic Grey (RAL 7042) 4430s reproduce pencil sketching, distant piano and environmental sounds alongside a film featuring the Finlandia hymn. Finally, four White 4430s in “My Aalto” disperse a calm, creative soundscape.
“The recent renovation was a big consideration during the physical installation”, says Hayward. “Smart IP’s single network cable for audio, power, and control allowed the loudspeakers to be positioned and reconfigured as the exhibition concept developed. A conventional active or passive loudspeaker system would have required separate power and audio cabling, potentially increasing infrastructure and limiting design adaptability.”
Blending video content, spatial audio, and the building itself, the “Visions of Alvar Aalto” exhibition has given people a new reason to visit Finlandia Hall. “The client now has a robust audio solution that’s easy to adapt and scale as the exhibition grows”, Hayward concludes.
(Photos: Genelec)
Martin Audio WPS with TiMax processing powers major Montreal festivals
This June and July, two of Montreal’s flagship festivals took place back-to-back in the heart of the Canadian city: Les Francos de Montréal, celebrating French-language artists, and the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, renowned for its diverse jazz-focused programme. As a partner of both festivals, L’Équipe Spectra equipped the outdoor stage at each event this year with a Martin Audio WPS Wavefront Precision sound system, optimized by TiMax spatial audio processing.
The popular free-admission stage, which regularly attracts audiences of thousands of people, is known as the Desjardins Stage during Les Francos de Montréal and the Loto-Quebec Club Montréal Stage during the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. It is located at Terrain 66 in the Quartier des Spectacles, at the centre of downtown Montreal.
“One of the key reasons the production team for the festivals were keen on the Wavefront Precision system is because the stages are right in downtown Montreal”, says Claus Frostell of Canadian distributor Erikson Pro. “With the optimisation that WPS provides, and also particularly with Martin Audio subwoofers, we’re able to localise the sound very specifically to the audience area.”
“One of the big concerns we have is noise management”, confirms Dan Meier, Senior Technical Coordinator for both festivals. “The city rules are very strict, and we need to keep good relationships with our neighbours.” The deployed PA comprised eight Martin Audio WPS line array elements per side, supplemented with four Torus T820 constant curvature arrays as front fills and two Torus T1230 models serving as delays. Low-frequency reinforcement was provided by three SX218 dual 18-inch subwoofers and six SX118 single 18-inch subwoofers, all powered by Martin Audio iKon amplifiers.
“We had the three dual 18-inch subs positioned across the front of the stage in cardioid mode, with one facing backwards and two facing forwards, while three of the single 18-inch cardioid subs positioned on each side”, Frostell explains. “With this cardioid set-up we were able to reduce SPL to the rear of the stage by around 30 dB, and were also able to narrow the coverage so that it is focused primarily on the audience area.” The entire system was modelled and optimised using Martin Audio Display 3 software. “For the WPS arrays, we used the Hard Avoid feature for the stage area and optimised the system to concentrate coverage on the audience”, Frostell notes.
For the first time, the festivals’ audiences also experienced the benefits of TiMax spatial audio processing, extending the stereo image across a larger listening area. “The organisers’ main concern was that, because they host a lot of guest engineers, they didn’t want excessive spatial movement or localisation that could detract from the engineers’ mixes”, says Frostell. “We explained that we’re simply enhancing the stereo image across the audience area, and once they understood that, they became very excited about the possibilities.”
“Traditionally, a left-right loudspeaker configuration creates a relatively small stereo sweet spot in the centre of the audience”, he continues. “Using TiMax with the WPS system and Torus front fills, we’re able to expand that stereo image significantly, allowing more of the audience to experience the mix as it was intended. The engineers don’t need to do anything differently - they mix as normal, and we simply extend what they are already doing.”
“This year the stage featured a wide variety of bands, from standard jazz ensembles requiring a more intricate mix with a grand piano, to really loud and bassy hip-hop artists, all of which sounded great on the Martin Audio system”, comments Hugues Bourque, the head front-of-house engineer for the Martin Audio-equipped stage at both the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and Francos de Montréal.
“We have had bad weather with lots of rain followed by scorching heat, but I never felt it affected the PA”, he adds. “It was a tricky area, but the system provided great coverage and performed very well for the duration of the two festivals.”
(Photos: Martin Audio)
Zwanzig GLP JDC2 IP mit Firmware 2.0 bilden durchgehende Bildfläche auf Spiritbox-Tour
Auf der jüngsten Nordamerika-Tour der kanadischen Metalcore-Band Spiritbox nutzte Lichtdesigner und Programmierer PJ Carruth ausschließlich JDC2-IP-Scheinwerfer von GLP. Insgesamt zwanzig Units kamen mit der neuen Firmware 2.0 zum Einsatz.
Carruth lebt und arbeitet in Los Angeles und ist als Lichtdesigner und Programmierer tätig. Seinen Weg in die Lichttechnik fand er über Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften: Bereits in der High School lernte er von seinem Mathematiklehrer die Programmierung bewegter Scheinwerfer und vertiefte diese Arbeit später während seines Studiums der angewandten Physik. Seither liegt sein Schwerpunkt auf vorprogrammierten, timecodebasierten Shows.
„Ich werde typischerweise für Timecode-Produktionen engagiert, bei denen ein sehr hoher Grad an Synchronisierung gefragt ist“, sagt er. „Viele meiner Kunden schätzen meine technische Denkweise und meinen Hintergrund in angewandter Physik. Das macht mich gerade für ungewöhnliche Anwendungen zu einer guten Besetzung.“
Die Musik von Spiritbox wechselt zwischen massiven Rhythmen und langen atmosphärischen Passagen, häufig innerhalb eines einzigen Songs. Das Licht sollte diese Struktur nicht nur begleiten, sondern sichtbar machen. „Spiritbox möchte eine sehr stakkatoartige visuelle Umsetzung, deshalb lehnt sich meine Programmierung stark an die perkussiven Elemente der Songs an“, erklärt Carruth. „Entscheidend ist, dass das Licht jedem einzelnen Moment seine eigene Stimmung gibt - wie visuelle Untertitel, die sich durch das gesamte Set ziehen.“
Das Touring-Paket bestand aus zwanzig GLP JDC2 IP, geliefert von Volt. Sämtliche Geräte standen in einer einzigen Reihe auf dem Bühnenboden im Upstage-Bereich. „Uns war klar, dass wir nur einen einzigen Scheinwerfertyp mitnehmen würden“, sagt Carruth. „Also brauchten wir maximale Vielseitigkeit.“
„Mit meinem Hintergrund in digitaler Kommunikationstheorie bin ich der Meinung, dass LED-Scheinwerfer nicht zwangsläufig einen eigenen Shutter-Kanal benötigen“, ergänzt er. „Ein großer Teil meiner Programmierung arbeitet beispielsweise mit Nyquist-Effekten statt synchronisierten Shutter-Looks sowie mit Zufallsgeneratoren statt zufälligen Shutter-Effekten. Deshalb beurteile ich einen Scheinwerfer sehr stark danach, wie er tatsächlich auf DMX-Signale reagiert.“
„Ursprünglich habe ich das komplette Set ohne externes Video und ausschließlich mit GLPs DigiFX programmiert“, so Carruth weiter. „Während der Proben kamen dann auf Wunsch unseres VJs einige NDI-Cues hinzu. Da MA3 das Tagging von Recipes sehr elegant löst, konnte ich sämtliche DigiFX-Programmierungen als Backup-Looks für einen möglichen Videoausfall behalten und sie mit einem einzigen Makro abrufen. Ein Ausfall des Medienserver hätte mir deshalb keine Sorgen bereitet.“
Mit der Firmware 2.0 führte GLP einen Canvas-basierten Positionierungs-Workflow mit relativen, absoluten und segmentierten Modi ein. Die Scheinwerfer lassen sich damit innerhalb eines definierten Koordinatenraums anordnen, sodass Inhalte korrekt über eine gesamte Gerätegruppe verteilt werden, anstatt auf jedem Gerät identisch zu erscheinen. Aus zwanzig einzelnen Strobes in einer Reihe wurde so eine durchgehende Bildfläche.
Als besonderen Moment des Sets hebt Carruth ein gesprochenes Gedicht-Interlude hervor. Auf den JDC2 IP erschien dabei lesbarer Text als Teil der Gesamtkomposition. „Während des Interludes zeigten IMAG, Projektor und JDC2 alle denselben Content“, erläutert Carruth. „Gerade bei den Outdoor-Shows, bei denen Projektor und Screens durch das Umgebungslicht zusätzlich an Kontrast verloren, hat der Feed auf den JDC2 einen enormen Unterschied gemacht.“
(Fotos: Alex Bemis)
Nico Riot chooses Chauvet for Skip The Use festival tour
Punk rockers Skip The Use have been touring the French and Belgian festival circuit this year. To light French rock band Skip The Use’s performances during this year’s festival season in France and Belgium, designer Nico Riot specified sixteen Chauvet Professional Color Strike M motorized strobe-washes which were supplied by MPM of Lorraine.
“I needed fixtures to match all the festivals’ packed rigs, so my shows look consistent everywhere”, says Riot. “Keeping every look as stripped-back as possible while fitting everything into the budget, I strove for a timeless, elegant aesthetic in a design that’s distinct enough to be consistent even when festival stages vary.”
Riot positioned his Color Strike Ms evenly, having eight units upstage and eight downstage. He relied on the upstage fixtures for backwashing, to saturate the stage’s red curtains with color, and to illuminate the band’s heart backdrop at the appropriate moments. The downstage units were used to “clean up key looks”, in addition to providing low-angle front lighting on the band and creating classic strobing effects.
As part of his plan to create consistent looks that instantly connect to audiences, Riot was keeping his color palette simple. “There were actually only five colors in the entire show: open white, CTO, CTB, red, and a pale red”, he explains. “I wanted to build a cohesive theme around red to mirror the album artwork and visual identity Skip the Use created for this cycle. It really was as simple and focused as that.”
Adding an extra element to Riot’s design was his use of dark space, which he describes as playing a “huge role” in setting the gripping aura on stage. To add to the power of these shadowy looks, he often accompanied them with dimly lit fog. The interplay of light and shadows was particularly effective in accenting the design’s giant heart prop, which was open and empty in the middle of the stage.
“I carried that heart concept as far as I could across the rest of the rig”, says Riot. “The band has immense stage presence, so my goal was to deliver high-impact moments, while using the lighting and not distract from their performance.”
(Photos: Chauvet Professional)
Ayrton Veloce Profiles illuminate Gaurav Gupta’s Haute Couture Collection in Mumbai
Gaurav Gupta’s Haute Couture Collection was showcased in July 2026 at the Jio World Pavilion 3 in Mumbai, India. The responsibility for delivering a lighting design to match the drama and tone of the avant-garde couturier’s work fell to lighting designer Harshavardhan Pathak, who’s remit was shaped to fit the fashion show’s concept of Lunar & Solar.
Pathak used 118 Ayrton Veloce Profiles, supplied by SSL Media, Mumbai, to create two concentric oval runways for the Collection presentation. The overhead truss was custom-built and positioned to give Pathak the ideal starting point to rig the Veloce Profiles. “The SSL team rigged the Veloces exactly how they were shown in my design”, he says. “This enabled me to focus them from the perfect position in every case, then fine-tune each one using a combination of Veloce’s shutters, focus and zoom to create the perfect oval shaped runways.”
The result was two circles of soft, ethereal light. The stylised, clean lines continued into the performance given by two aerial dancers at the epicentre of the circles, choreographed by international artistic director and founder of performing arts company Natya Nectar Circus De India, Guari Devi.
“I used gobos from the overhead Veloce Profiles to create an orbit effect around a pair of suspended dancers and illuminated them from above in tight circles of light that enhanced the sense of drama and isolation, and introduced a contrast of warm and cool colours to emphasise the Lunar & Solar theme”, explains Pathak. The show was programmed on a GrandMA3 Full Size.
Ulhas Sahasrabuddhe, who led the SSL Media team, states: “We have done many shows with Harsha Pathak in the past years. It was an exciting opportunity to execute this unusual design suggested for the Gaurav Gupta Show. The Ayrton Veloce performed as expected and a special mention must be made for its Blade function, which was the centrepiece of this design. We look forward to adding more Ayrton fixtures in the immediate future.”
Vijay Thaygarajoo, Regional Sales Manager APAC for Ayrton, adds: “We are immensely proud to see the Veloce Profile play such a pivotal role in bringing Harshavardhan Pathak’s vision to life. Harsha’s creative use of the Veloce’s framing and gobos perfectly captured the ethereal drama of the Lunar & Solar theme. Our sincere thanks go to our distributor VMT (Vardhaman Mega-Tech), along with Ulhas Sahasrabuddhe and the team at SSL Media.”
(Photos: Harshavardhan Pathak/Rohit Harshavardhan Pathak)
Über 200 GLP-Scheinwerfer auf Bühnen des Clout Festival 2026
Beim Clout Festival 2026, einem der größten Hip-Hop-Festivals Polens, kamen auf beiden Bühnen insgesamt 223 GLP-Scheinwerfer zum Einsatz. Sechzig JDC Burst 1, 74 JDC2 IP, fünfzig Creos und 39 WildBar 16 waren Teil des Festival-Lichtsystems. Die technische Gesamtproduktion lag bei Aram, Polens größtem Unternehmen für Veranstaltungstechnik und technische Produktion.
Der GLP JDC Burst 1 war mit sechzig Geräten in großer Stückzahl beim Clout Festival vertreten. Laut GLP gehört das wetterfeste Hybrid-Strobe inzwischen zum Bestand zahlreicher Verleiher in Polen und findet sich zunehmend auf technischen Ridern großer Konzert- und Festivalproduktionen.
Für Rental-Unternehmen sei diese Rider-Akzeptanz ein wichtiger Faktor: Je häufiger ein Gerät von Designern spezifiziert wird, je vertrauter Programmierer mit seiner Bedienung sind und je besser sich bei Bedarf zusätzliche Bestände im Markt beschaffen lassen, desto verlässlicher lasse sich eine entsprechende Investition produktionsübergreifend einsetzen und auslasten.
Insgesamt 74 GLP JDC2 IP kamen ebenfalls beim Clout Festival zum Einsatz. In dieser Stückzahl lassen sich die Geräte nicht mehr nur als einzelne Scheinwerfer einsetzen, sondern zu einer konsistenten visuellen Struktur innerhalb des Bühnendesigns verbinden. Bewegungen, Wellen, Verläufe und grafische Effekte können so über größere Gerätegruppen hinweg angelegt werden.
Damit folgt der JDC2 IP einer Entwicklung, die im modernen Lichtdesign zunehmend sichtbar wird: Scheinwerfer übernehmen nicht mehr ausschließlich klassische Beleuchtungsaufgaben, sondern werden als Elemente einer übergeordneten visuellen Architektur behandelt.
Fünfzig GLP Creos ergänzten das Clout-Rig um großflächige Wash-Looks und eine Lichtquelle, die selbst als visuelles Element in das Bühnenbild integriert werden konnte. 39 GLP WildBar 16 schufen zusätzliche lineare und grafische Strukturen innerhalb der Lichtarchitektur.
Aram übernahm beim Clout Festival 2026 die technische Produktion auf beiden Bühnen. Das Unternehmen verantwortete Planung und Umsetzung der Multimedia- und Lichtsysteme sowie Vorbereitung, Logistik, Installation, Konfiguration und technischen Support vor Ort. Mit zahlreichen internationalen Künstlern im Festival-Lineup musste das technische Setup unterschiedliche Touring-Teams, technische Rider und individuelle Showkonzepte innerhalb einer gemeinsamen Festival-Infrastruktur abbilden können.
Für AV Light, den offiziellen GLP-Vertriebspartner in Polen, steht das Clout Festival beispielhaft für die aktuelle Entwicklung von GLP in Polen. Entscheidend ist aus Sicht des Distributors nicht allein, wie viele Geräte in den Markt gelangen - mit steigender Verfügbarkeit wachse auch die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass Produkte auf großen Produktionen eingesetzt werden. Das wiederum erhöhe ihre Bekanntheit bei Designern und Programmierern und könne dazu führen, dass sie häufiger spezifiziert werden.
(Fotos: Aram)
Elation Paragon and Rebel support Italian summer festivals
Elation lighting fixtures took center stage at two major summer festivals in Italy’s Veneto region in July 2026, with the Paragon S, Rebel Wash 12, and Rebel Line 16 delivering dynamic looks at Bassano Music Park and Mirano Summer Festival. The two events presented very different production environments but shared a requirement for IP-rated fixtures capable of performing in demanding outdoor conditions.
At Bassano Music Park, Lighting Designer and Project Manager Marco Renica of rental company Cipiesse selected thirty-six Paragon S profile moving heads alongside thirty-two Rebel Wash 12 fixtures. At the Mirano Summer Festival, Mazzon Service handled audio, video, and lighting and deployed Elation’s Rebel Line 16 tilt bars on the main stage.
Now in its third edition, Bassano Music Park brings national and international artists to the city of Bassano del Grappa. Organized by DuePunti Eventi in collaboration with the City of Bassano del Grappa, this year’s festival featured Italian artists and international stars including Tommaso Paradiso, Rod Stewart, and Sting.
Cipiesse deployed thirty-six Paragon S moving heads across four trusses along with twelve additional units positioned on the floor. LD Marco Renica had previously used the Paragon S on a tour where the production presented particularly challenging conditions and specified it for the festival, too.
The thirty-two Rebel Wash 12 full-spectrum moving-head luminaires, mounted on side and rear trusses, complemented the profile fixtures with broad, even washes, RGBL color and mid-air beam effects, giving the lighting system a combination of profile and wash capabilities.
Only a short distance from Venice, the Mirano Summer Festival transformed the city of Mirano into a 20-day destination for concerts and live performances. Now in its twentieth edition, the multi-genre festival featured a diverse lineup of Italian artists.
Mazzon Service was responsible for the event’s audio, video, and lighting and selected Elation Rebel Line 16 fixtures as a dynamic visual backdrop for the stage.
(Photos: Elation)
Christopher Pratt uses Ayrton Stradale to light “Dear Evan Hansen” in Portsmouth
The recent amateur production of “Dear Evan Hansen” performed by CCADS Theatre in The King’s Theatre, Portsmouth, saw some highly original uses of Ayrton Stradale fixtures in a design by lighting designer Christopher Pratt (CMP Lighting Design). Pratt, who has a long-established working relationship with CCADS, incorporated fifteen Stradales into his design, utilising the shutter sets to carve out precise areas of action and track the actors across the stage.
“Our director, John-Paul McCrohon, wanted to set the mood as an overarching sense of isolation”, he says. “The idea was to light the minimum amount of space needed for each scene - which is where the concept of the hard line shuttering came in. I therefore insisted all the movers overhead should have shutter blades, and, being familiar with Ayrton Mistral spots and Diablo profiles, was keen to explore the new Stradale.”
Pratt approached the show’s lighting supplier, ITP Lighting Ltd, with his request, who increased its investment in more Stradale units for their hire stock. “This allowed me to have three bars of five Stradale profiles overhead, which worked perfectly in the 9.5 m x 6.5 m x 6 m performance space”, reports Pratt.
“The amount of hanging set was minimal which left me with lots of freedom to hang lighting bars and rig the Stradales where I wanted”, he furthers. “It gave me a nice balance between keeping the movers hidden and covering the full expanse of the stage. I had complete freedom to work with different angles, create different looks, and get as much from the Stradale as possible.”
With only two days of technical rehearsal - and with amateur actors only available in the evening - Pratt had to work fast. “It was a brand new set, so we were going in blind”, he says. “On Day 1 we set out the boundaries of what each scene needed, and because of the lack of time, I used only one Stradale to light each scene. This gave me the square/rectangular space I needed to ensure we covered every location needed as we blocked through the scenes.”
“On Day 2, I filled in the details using the rest of the Stradale fixtures, sometimes using as many as six for each square”, he continues. “I was able to make fine adjustments with the actors in place, adjusting angles and perfecting timings, smoothing and blending the overlaps and pauses, achieving smooth graduations.” For the more complex effects, such as creating a moving corridor that would open in front and close behind an actor, Pratt says it was “rather like tracking the actor with shutter blades.”
“I set up a preset for the corridor of light I wanted”, he details. “Then I brought a shutter in to cover the entire beam path. Then recorded each step taking out that shutter blade as a cue and used follow-ons to have them blend into one another. I then repeated it the other way if I was closing the corridor.”
Pratt says that Stradale’s rotating frame assembly made “a big difference” in the speed and ability to achieve the precise angles he required: “Most of it was at 90° where not much adjustment to the angle of the shutter blades was required. But in several scenes the angle was offset, so I would bring in the shutter blades, rotate the assembly +/-90° and adjust the shutter blades until I could cover all the awkward angles to achieve a perfect square.”
Working alongside Pratt and McCrohon were Roxanne Wootton (Musical Director), Amanda Knight (Stage Manager), and Lauren Smith (Deputy Stage Manager), as well as follow spot operators Holly Sandford and Paul Moroney. The sound design was by Aaron Hayes, and the set by Scenic Projects.
(Photos: Tony Neil)
Joker Out’s “Karneval” extravaganza lit with Robe
Robe’s new GigaPointe moving lights made their Slovenian debut with indie rockers Joker Out, who celebrated their tenth birthday with a special show - “Karneval”, a festival-style, circus-themed extravaganza, including special guests - staged at the outdoor Kardeljeva ploscad venue at the university in capital Ljubljana.
Tasked with designing lighting this event was visual design agency Blackout, who have been working with Joker Out since 2021. The lighting design team was led by Klemen Krajnc with Crt Birsa taking care of key lighting, and they chose to work with a large rig of Robe moving lights.
This included a set of thirty-two Robe GigaPointes, which had just been delivered to rental company Event Lighting. Also on the rig were thirteen Robe Fortes, six iForte LTXs, thirty-seven MegaPointes, forty-nine iSpiiderXs wash beams and fourteen Tetra2 moving LED battens.
The band picked the spherical-shaped stage and worked with set designer Maja Moravec on creating various circus props, intricate draping and other scenic elements to evoke the Big Top look, including the band risers onstage. The central arched stage was flanked by wings dressed to resemble circus tents and some of the guest performers were aerialists and other circus acts.
Krajnc added the lights to this stage layout, which were overhead and around the sides of the stage structure and on eight independent scaffolding towers, six behind the stage - graduated in height but all taller than the stage and wings so they were visible over the top - plus left and right PA towers framing the central section just in front of the stage.
The GigaPointes were on the deck, positioned along the full width of the front edge of the 70-metre-wide, 2-metre-high stage, including the two wings and the wing returns at each end. All of these sat on a ledge half a metre below stage level. These were used primarily for creating dramatic effects and reaching out across the arena with narrow piercing beams.
Twenty-seven of the thirty-seven MegaPointes were rigged on nine over-stage finger trusses - running in an upstage/downstage orientation with different heights following the curvature of the roof arch, and the other ten were upstage in a straight line. Krajnc worked these and the GigaPointes together to create some of the show’s most memorable lighting scenes.
Fourteen Robe Tetra2 LED battens were used to illuminate the stage wing set elements, rigged on the floor for optimal up lighting of the vertical parts of the set. Twenty-seven iSpiiderXs were also on the finger trusses - three per truss. Another eighteen were used for lower side light across the sphere stage, nine per side, running front to back on low parts of the stage structure.
Four iSpiiderXs were used for front key lighting for the static members of the band in two high cantilevered positions on the downstage sides of the stage structure; two for the drummer and one each for the keyboardist and backing vocalists on their risers. These were under Birsa’s control for the show. He additionally layered in more keys using a combination of the six iForte LTXs and thirteen Fortes, for lighting the mobile band members plus several guests.
The side keys onstage utilised four Fortes, two each positioned on the far stage left and right (of the eight) towers and throwing onto the front of the stage, covering the performance areas at the front of the wings, the central stage apron and the thrust area/runway. On the two delay towers left and right of FOH were eight Fortes, and the thirteenth Forte was rigged in the mid front position on the sphere stage to back light performers as they sashayed down the central catwalk.
Above the Fortes on the delay towers were six iForte LTXs, three per side, programmed to catch all the onstage, forestage, wing and runway action. The six iForte LTXs were running on five RoboSpot systems - the BaseStations were under the stage.
Krajnc and Birsa pre-vizzed the show as much as was practical and on site had two days of programming with the full rig. However, the main challenge for this show was nothing technical or artistic - it was the weather. Ljubljana is situated in a wide, flat basin known as the Ljubljana Basin, surrounded by hills and mountains, and this has its own microclimate.
A violent thunderstorm complete with torrential rain unleashed itself a couple of hours before Joker Out were due to take the stage, resulting in extensive flooding and emergency adaptations being needed on the site. Some elements of the kit were drenched and waterlogged and some of the upstage back drapes were ripped off by the high winds and had to be reattached as best as possible. Thankfully, everything was deemed safe and 17,000 Joker Out fans were able to enjoy the show.
(Photos: Sasa Krajnc/Miro Majcen/Janez Strukelj)
Elation fixtures help Tom Azoulay solve challenges of Pont Neuf art installation
When French artist JR transformed Paris’s Pont Neuf into a monumental inflatable cave this summer, lighting designer Fabrice “Tom” Azoulay faced some unusual challenges: make a constantly changing inflatable architecture read as a cave, illuminate a 120-meter structure while working with extremely short throw distances and environmental constraints, create distinct focal points for AR interaction, and do it all without revealing the technical infrastructure behind the experience. Azoulay chose Elation lighting fixtures to help solve those challenges.
Created by JR with Camille Pajot to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Wrapped Pont Neuf”, the installation transformed the historic bridge into an immersive environment open to the public from June 6-28. Visitors entered a cave-like passage beneath a giant inflatable mountain, encountering a combination of sound, scent, and augmented-reality experiences, and interacting with the installation via three Snapchat activation points.
The lighting and electrical distribution were handled by Canal LED with support from a team of technicians. For Azoulay, director of Canal LED and the project’s lighting designer, the challenge was to give the cavernous interior depth and definition while creating carefully controlled areas for the installation’s digital experiences. Working with lighting programmers Antoine Planchais and Basile Leclerc, lighting assistants Olivier Zaffran and Romain Louvier, and technicians from Dushow, Azoulay built the lighting system around a range of Elation LED fixtures.
The unusual structure meant that conventional lighting approaches were not an option. The inflatable cave, designed by Air Toiles Concept, was continually subject to movement and changes in shape, while the available space between the tunnel and the outer structure left the lighting designer with extremely short distances for fixture placement.
Full-scale lighting tests were carried out in a hangar at Orly Airport before installation on the bridge. Those tests helped determine fixture selection - Chorus Line 16, Proteus Rayzor 760, Proteus Maximus, Artiste Picasso - and positioning while allowing Azoulay to explore how reflected light could reveal the contours of the fabric.
“I chose these fixtures and their positions following our tests in Orly, while remaining flexible during installation when certain options proved more interesting”, says Azoulay. “On average, we had only one meter, or even fifty centimeters, of throw distance for our floor-mounted equipment.”
Inside the cave, Elation Chorus Line 16 pixel bar wash luminaires were positioned in the technical gap running between the cave fabric and the mountain structure. Their motorized 4°-40° zoom and 220° tilt range gave Azoulay the flexibility to cover the 120-meter-long surface, while working within the limited space. The fixtures were used both for general illumination of the cave and for backlighting the inflatable mountain canvas.
Elation Proteus Rayzor 760 wash fixtures added another layer, while Elation Artiste Picasso LED profile fixtures provided the concentrated intensity required at the installation’s three Snapchat zones. Rather than simply illuminating the fabric, Azoulay used light to shape the cave visually. Carefully positioned beams picked out sections of the fabric, emphasizing stalactites and stalagmites and adding depth to painted crevices. Maintaining constant tension on the fabric was essential to keep it from getting too close to the fixtures and creating hot spots.
A key part of the approach was indirect illumination. By striking the white rear surface of the fabric and allowing the light to reflect into the cave, the designer could create intensity and contrast without exposing the fixtures or producing visible beams. “I was happy with the result because you couldn’t see any of the fixtures or even their beams, thanks to the rear-projection technique”, he says. “The lighting became part of the architecture rather than something you looked at.”
The lighting design guided visitors toward Snapchat zones, areas that presented an additional lighting challenge. Each area needed considerably more illumination than the surrounding cave so visitors could interact with the augmented-reality content and smartphone applications, while maintaining enough contrast to preserve the overall atmosphere.
At each zone, a small rock marked the interaction point, where visitors could scan a QR code to access digital animations including a dancer, approaching bats, and visualizations that responded to the movements of people around them. For these areas, Azoulay opted for overhead lighting. Light levels had to be “just perfect” so the contrast with the rest of the artwork wasn’t too strong and to ensure the augmented reality glasses didn’t stop working. To find a balance and create contrast, intensity, and depth within the overall lighting environment, the designer also lit from above using reflected light.
Azoulay used a combination of Chorus Line 16, Rayzor 760, and Artiste Picasso fixtures to build these focal points. The Picasso profiles supplied the higher intensity needed for the AR experience, while the Chorus Line and Rayzor fixtures contributed reflected and surrounding light to maintain continuity with the rest of the cave.
The deliberate use of a white surface on the rear of the structure helped maximize reflected light, allowing the designer to create bright areas without resorting to excessive direct illumination. As for the color of the projection, Azoulay describes it as a white-plus-RGB mix with a subtle emphasis toward red.
After dark, the exterior of the mountain-like structure took on a different presence. Two 10-meter towers positioned on platforms near the Seine each carried eight Elation Proteus Maximus LED profile fixtures, providing the power needed to illuminate the artwork across its large exterior surfaces. Azoulay also made extensive use of the fixtures’ integrated prism effects to add another dimension to the nighttime presentation. Additional Rayzor 760 fixtures positioned in the bridge’s recessed alcoves provided exterior reinforcement.
The location presented limitations on where and how light could be projected. Trees blocked access to the ends of the structure, requiring a cross-lighting approach, while the busy Seine, nearby buildings, and residential areas demanded careful control of spill. Azoulay used the framing shutters on the Proteus Maximus to precisely contain the output and prevent unwanted light.
The Elation lights were available in sufficient quantities from Dushow, and Elation is a brand that Canal LED itself has distributed for several years. The lighting was programmed over six days and two nights, and despite weather-related challenges that forced the teams to dismantle and reinstall the equipment in order to replace fabric torn by the wind, and then redo the programming, the project was a great success.
“For me, the success of the design came from making the lighting feel a natural part of the artwork”, concludes Azoulay. “Everything had to serve the architecture, the interaction, and the atmosphere, and when all of those elements came together, the lighting became part of the experience.” The Elation gear comprised 137 x Chorus Line 16, 24 x Proteus Rayzor 760, 18 x Proteus Maximus, and 12 x Artiste Picasso fixtures.
(Photos: Elation)
ADJ lighting supports “Music in the Mountains” concert series
Set against the backdrop of Montana’s Rocky Mountains, “Music in the Mountains” brings live music and community together every summer in Big Sky. For the 2026 season, local production company Jereco deployed an almost exclusively ADJ lighting rig to provide a house system capable of supporting a diverse lineup of regional and touring artists throughout the summer.
Held every Thursday at Len Hill Park in the heart of Big Sky Town Center, “Music in the Mountains” is a free, family-friendly concert series. With a different artist lineup each week, the event requires a lighting system that can deliver everything from subtle, atmospheric looks to high-energy concert effects, while also withstanding the demands of an outdoor summer production.
Jereco has been responsible for the technical production of “Music in the Mountains” since the event was launched more than a decade ago. For the 2026 season, Head of Lighting Jesse Emby and Stage Designer Brady Cool selected a rig almost exclusively comprised of ADJ fixtures to form the event’s house lighting system, which remains installed on the stage throughout the summer.
At the heart of the design were sixteen of ADJ’s Hydro Beam CMY automated beam luminaires, a recent addition to Jereco’s inventory. The fixtures were split between two prominent mid-stage trusses, each flown at an angle to create a distinctive V-shaped structure above the stage.
The Hydro Beam CMY is an IP65-rated moving head beam designed for demanding indoor and outdoor applications. Powered by an Osram Sirius HRI 310W Pro discharge lamp combined with precision-engineered optics, it produces a 2-degree beam. “The Hydro Beam CMY outperforms our previous beam fixture in every way”, comments Cool. “I particularly like the multicolour effect, which works very well when combined with one of the prism options, and the frost filter. It allowed me to generate a nice, soft back wash effect at ‘Music in the Mountains’ that was perfect for more laid-back moments.”
For performer illumination, eight ADJ Encore LP12Z IP LED-powered zoom pars were rigged to the downstage truss. The two mid-stage trusses were each lined with five Jolt Panel FX fixtures to add a dynamic layer of visual effects to the design. Combining white strobe LEDs with zone-controlled RGB LEDs, the fixtures provided the lighting team with a range of options for creating eye-catching looks, from high-impact strobe hits and animated chase patterns to colorful background effects.
Eight of the similar but linear Jolt Bar FXIP fixtures were mounted to the front of the downstage truss, providing a complementary source of strobe and color effects while also adding visual definition to the front edge of the stage. “The Jolt Series was our stepping stone into the ADJ product line,” comments Emby. “We bought our first panels around five years ago, and they gave us the confidence to expand into other areas of the ADJ range.”
Interspersed with the Jolt Panel FX units were Encore DBX twin-cell blinders. This IP65-rated fixture combines two 150 W RGBAW LED cells with secondary RGB color mixing LEDs integrated into the textured rear reflector. This allows it to function not only as a high-output audience blinder, but also as a source of colorful background glow. “We’ve had the Encore DBX blinders in our inventory for around six months, and I’ve used them on 98 percent of the shows we’ve done since then”, notes Cool.
Pictured: Pinky and the Floyd at “Music in the Mountains”. (Photos: ADJ)
GLP JDC2 IP, JDC Burst 1 und Mad Maxx beim Moorea Festival im Einsatz
Acht GLP JDC2 IP, zehn JDC Burst 1 und ein Mad Maxx prägten das Erscheinungsbild der Stage B bei der dritten Ausgabe des französischen Moorea-Festivals. Für Lichtdesign, Programmierung und Operating zeichnete Loic Esparraga vom Pariser Design-Studio Mind verantwortlich.
Vom 5. bis 7. Juni 2026 brachte das Festival elektronische Musik auf das Gelände des Château de Grillemont in La Chapelle-Blanche-Saint-Martin. Zum internationalen Line-up gehörten unter anderem Timmy Trumpet, Dimitri Vegas, Oliver Heldens, Blasterjaxx, Morten, Sub Zero Project und Trym. „Das Moorea Festival ist noch vergleichsweise jung, wächst aber schnell und etabliert sich zunehmend als fester Termin - sowohl für Branchenprofis als auch für das breite Publikum“, sagt Yohan Ory von Musique Industrie Développement (MID), dem französischen GLP-Vertriebspartner.
MID verband sein Engagement für das Festival mit der Möglichkeit, GLP-Scheinwerfer unter realen Produktionsbedingungen zu präsentieren: Lichtdesigner, Dienstleister, Kunden und Veranstalter konnten die Geräte damit während laufender Shows erleben und beurteilen. „Wir haben diese Produkte ganz bewusst ausgewählt, um den anwesenden Fachleuten einen repräsentativen Eindruck vom aktuellen GLP-Portfolio zu vermitteln“, so Ory. „Demonstrationen unter realen Einsatzbedingungen sind immer überzeugender als Präsentationen im Showroom.“
Widrige Wetterbedingungen stellten zusätzliche Anforderungen an die Outdoor-Produktion. Das Rig der Stage B konzentrierte sich daher auf drei IP-zertifizierte GLP-Produkte, mit denen Esparraga ein dynamisches visuelles Umfeld für die unterschiedlichen Künstler und Shows schuf. Die acht GLP JDC2 IP und zehn GLP JDC Burst 1 prägten die zentralen Effekte der Stage B.
Gemeinsam eröffneten die beiden Hybrid-Strobes Esparraga und den gastierenden Lichtdesignern ein breites gestalterisches Spektrum für das Programm der Stage B - von intensiven Washes über grafische Pixelinhalte bis hin zu kraftvollen Weißlicht-Akzenten.
Für die weithin sichtbaren Beam-Effekte kam ein einzelner GLP Mad Maxx LED Sky Beam zum Einsatz. Sein breiter Lichtkegel reichte deutlich über den Bühnenbereich hinaus und machte die Stage auch aus größerer Entfernung auf dem Festivalgelände sichtbar.
(Fotos: MID)
dBS Solutions deploys Martin Audio for all stages of Daresbury Festival
dBS Solutions provided sound reinforcement for the dance-focused Daresbury Festival at Walton Hall and Gardens in Warrington, Cheshire, with all three stages powered by Martin Audio systems. The two-day event featured the Could Be Real tribute festival on the Friday evening, followed by the sold-out Daresbury Festival itself on the Saturday, hosting 8,500 festivalgoers across the site.
“It’s a site we know really well”, says dBS Solutions director Chris Bogg. “The stage looks immense because it’s surrounded by trees; it’s nicely tucked in and creates quite an intimate setting.” With main stage capacity capped at 6,500, maintaining engagement for all attendees across the secondary stages proved critical, supported by strong headline programming on stages two and three.
To support this the second stage saw significant development. “They tried different stage configurations this year and opted for a 15-metre by 12-metre structure, which was fantastic for these acts”, states Bogg. “It provided plenty of stage real estate for risers, monitors, and changeovers.” To deliver audio site-wide, dBS deployed Martin Audio systems across all three stages, including Wavefront Precision Series line arrays on both the main and second stage.
The main stage comprised twelve Martin Audio WPC (Wavefront Precision Compact) line array elements per side, supplemented by ten Martin Audio SXH subwoofers in a cardioid castellated configuration. Outfill coverage was handled by Martin Audio Torus T1230 constant curvature arrays, with front fill delivered by Martin Audio FlexPoint FP12 enclosures.
On the second stage, Martin Audio WPS (Wavefront Precision Sub-compact) arrays and SXC118 cardioid subwoofers were deployed in a ground-stacked configuration. “There were DJs performing who had featured on the main stage in previous years”, explains Bogg. “While it was a smaller audience area, it wasn’t a smaller line-up.”
In the courtyard, an acoustic stage featured Martin Audio FlexPoint FP15 point-source cabinets, complemented by four SX118 subwoofers per side. “It was obviously a much smaller system, but there were still audiences of up to 500 people gathered in front of it at a time”, says Bogg.
System prediction and optimisation across the site were managed via Martin Audio’s Display software, with the audio team liaising closely with local acoustic consultants to maintain strict off-site noise compliance. Acoustic management on-site was equally important. “The castellated cardioid sub arrays helped us steer low-end energy away from the perimeter while tightly controlling pattern width across the listening area", reports Bogg.
"We applied Hard Avoid wherever we could - certainly behind the stage”, he adds. “Our systems engineer Oli Chilton was constantly monitoring atmospheric fluctuations, updating predictions in Display, importing them into Vu-Net, and pushing new filter settings to the rigs between performances to compensate for shifts in temperature, humidity, and wind.”
(Photos: Martin Audio)
Elation Proteus Maximus picked for ever-changing Mt. Joy show
Indie band Mt. Joy is bringing its live show to audiences across the U.S. on the “Hope We Have Fun Tour: Part 2”, featuring a lighting design from Lightswitch. Elation’s Proteus Maximus LED profile fixtures deliver the consistent key light that keeps the five-member band defined and naturally lit as the visual environment shifts around them.
The tour, which began in April 2026 and runs into October, marks the first collaboration between Mt. Joy and Lightswitch. The lighting design team of Ignacio “Iggy” Rosenberg, Hailey Featherstone, and John Featherstone worked closely with the band, management, lighting director Cory Sperry, and programmer Austin Schneider to develop a show that moves between intimate, acoustic moments and high-energy jam numbers.
“One of the things we like about working with Mt. Joy is that they are such a diverse band. They stretch everything from these beautiful, quiet, acoustic, intimate moments to full-on, blown-out jam band moments”, says Lightswitch Principal and Managing Director John Featherstone, who describes the show as having an eclectic, organic vibe. “It’s a really interesting and exciting design challenge working with a band like that because we have to make sure we have a system that breathes, that scales, that responds to all those modalities.”
The production is built around two distinct visual acts. The first is more driven by video content displayed on a blow-through LED screen at the rear of the stage, while the second shifts toward a more light-focused experience. An angled, moving truss configuration adds depth and dimensionality while allowing the visual vocabulary to change between acts. That flexibility extends to the band’s set list, which is constantly evolving from show to show. The crew can receive the set list as little as ninety minutes before showtime, making adaptability an essential part of the lighting system.
As part of a larger lighting package, Lightswitch uses the Proteus Maximus in a role that goes beyond the traditional followspot. The fixtures provide the production’s primary key light, allowing the designers to maintain precise control and theatrical modeling of the performers during quieter moments while retaining enough output to cut through the large-scale looks to pick out the band members.
“We lean into the Proteus Maximus as our key light in a way that is fundamentally different to most shows that use followspots”, explains Featherstone. “That’s the role of the Proteus Maximus - they are our fundamental constant to the system because it’s our go-to key light. They also provide broad washes of color, soft subtle gobo texture, and powerful beams.”
The fixtures are positioned to provide coverage from four directions, giving the designers the flexibility to sculpt the performers within the constantly changing stage picture. “A lot of Mt. Joy is about creating drama and theatre, so we’re not looking for a flat type of key light”, says Featherstone. “Even if it is a three-quarter backlight or sidelight, it pulls the members of the band out of the rest of the visual tableau so you can really identify the performers.”
The five members of Mt. Joy also provided a fundamental design principle for the lighting system, as everything in the rig is base-five. The Proteus Maximus fixtures are arranged in four groups of five, providing key-light coverage for each band member from each of the four cardinal directions. “It’s great to work with a band that is so collaborative, where everyone has a voice, so it seemed to us appropriate to honor the base-five notion of the band throughout the rig”, says Featherstone.
The truss system also plays a key role in transforming the visual environment between the show’s two acts. During the intermission, the trusses are re-trimmed, changing the rig’s appearance from its more orderly, flat-level-trim configuration into a deliberately asymmetrical arrangement. “It looks more like a chaotic, pick-up-sticks truss - entirely different”, describes Featherstone. “That gives us a different design vocabulary to lean into, with different effects we can use in the second part of the show, and just a different look.”
3G Productions supplied lighting, video, rigging, and crew for the tour. On the road, Sperry oversees the lighting system while Schneider handles programming, working closely with the Lightswitch design team and Mt. Joy’s production.
(Photos: Iggy Rosenberg)
Robe Svopatts chosen for current Bleachers tour
US rock band Bleachers - lead singer and music producer Jack Antonoff’s current live music performance project - are on the road this year after their new studio album dropped in May. Wanting something “special, different, quirky and great-looking” to set the stage show apart, Antonoff turned to lighting and visual designer Tobias Rylander.
Rylander decided on a retro and authentically analogue look for the stage. He specified thirty Robe Svopatt fixtures to be a major part of the lighting rig, which also features several customised tungsten fixtures incorporating bulbs from different sodium luminaires, repurposed as bespoke theatrical profiles and fresnels.
The lights were supplied by Volt Lites from Burbank, California, where Matt Shimamoto was the account manager. “Volt is one of my favourite vendors”, states Rylander whose initial design drawings had included the classic Svoboda lighting fixture. However, with a lot of dimming channels already on the plot, Shimamoto showed him the Svopatt video as a potential power-saving alternative. “I wanted it straight away”, says Rylander. “It can be a strobe, a wash, a light curtain - exactly what I wanted.”
He also showed the fixture to Jack Antonoff and the band, who agreed to put it on the rig. The “Everyone for Ten Minutes” tour is the second Bleachers design for Rylander, and some of the look is an evolution from the 2022 tour mixed with fresh, imaginative energy. The Svopatts are rigged on three over-stage trusses, ten fixtures per truss.
The physical rigging of the units took a bit of figuring out as Rylander wanted them to resemble classic Svobodas and produce spectacular light curtains, among multiple other effects, including silhouettes. So, he had them hung with the Svopatt modules producing linear rows when illuminated - effectively with every second fixture hung upside down.
“Once this was accomplished, it was fantastic”, says Rylander. “We ran them in full pixel mode and pixel mapping became much more straightforward. Having this huge canvas looked beautiful, especially when running with video-style effects - very organic and eye-catching with intensity chases and colour mixing effects.”
Rylander also created the tour’s stage layout and scenography, which he describes as “scenic and analogue music studio-esque”. There’s no conventional video, but he filmed some analogue light bulbs and other tungsten illuminative effects in action, with the footage fed into the strobes to produce specific kinetic effects running in conjunction with the lighting effects on the Svopatts.
Antonoff is very much involved with the look of the show, and he and Rylander have a great understanding and communication of what’s wanted and needed in terms of visual identity. While it is a fun rock ‘n’ roll show with wide appeal, the aesthetics are carefully curated to evoke an aura of 1980s arena rock.
Lighting programmer and operator Dustin Snyder, who is out on the road with the tour, has also been instrumental in developing the look and feel of the lighting. He observed that Rylander likes using sparse individual pixel effects and single pixel or one-pixel-zone at a time looks, and that the Svopatts as a back light can bring a fuzzy analogue “illuminated atmospheric” feel, similar to an old school 120 V par rig but with contemporary brightness, features and colours.
The tour is ongoing, with another US leg upcoming, followed by Australia, then the UK and Europe in late fall.
(Photos: Rob DeMartin)
Lorde’s touring team chooses DPA and Wisycom
Under her stage name Lorde, New Zealand singer-songwriter Ella Yelich-O’Connor continues her latest global touring and festival cycle spanning arenas, amphitheaters and intimate venues across multiple continents. The production behind her live shows reflects a sonic vision that leans heavily on audio solutions from DPA Microphones and Wisycom.
For the “Ultrasound” world tour, which concludes October 10, 2026, at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, front-of-house mix engineer Philip J. Harvey selected DPA Microphones’ D:facto 4018VL capsule, while monitor engineer Kevin Glendinning uses Wisycom MPR50 belt-packs, MTK transmitters, MFL optical link and a CSI16T combiner. Glendinning also credits RF specialist Stacey Handley with designing the system architecture.
Pictured: Philip J. Harvey and Kevin Glendinning. (Photo: DPA Microphones/Wisycom)
Rebellion Festival brings punk energy to Blackpool with Martin Audio
The Rebellion Festival is the largest independently run punk festival in the UK. Hosted inside Blackpool’s historic Winter Gardens, the festival features more than 300 live acts spread across six stages. Held over four days, it brings together tens of thousands of punk fans, musicians, and artists from across the globe.
For the year’s event, multiple Martin Audio Wavefront Precision line array solutions delivered the necessary power and dynamics, including in the Winter Gardens’ main Ballroom, the Olympia Room (known as Club Casbah for the event), and the Conference Room.
The festival rigs were supplied by Liverpool-based dBS Solutions. “In the main Ballroom, we deployed an all-Martin Audio system centred on WPL large-format line arrays”, explains James Roberts of dBS Solutions. “Club Casbah featured a WPC system, and we worked with the Winter Gardens team to manage and supplement their existing WPS system installed in the Conference Room.”
The complete Ballroom setup comprised ten Martin Audio WPL line array elements per side, supplemented by twelve Martin Audio SXH218 subwoofers deployed in a cardioid castle wall configuration. Eight Martin Audio WPS sub-compact line array elements, arranged in four pairs of two, provided front-fill coverage, while a pair of Martin Audio FlexPoint FP12s served as outfills. The Martin Audio coverage continued on stage with XE500 floor monitors, alongside a pair of Torus constant curvature arrays ground-stacked on a pair of SXC118 subwoofers on each side as side fills.
“The Ballroom is a large space; it’s stunning, but it has a lot of reflective surfaces”, notes Roberts. “We used Martin Audio’s Hard Avoid feature via the iKon amplifiers - particularly targeting the huge curved ceiling - to help bring down the natural reverberation in the room. The castellated sub array also worked very well in providing substantial rejection back onto the stage.”
In Club Casbah, the system comprised ten Martin Audio WPC elements per side, paired with eight SXH218 subwoofers in a cardioid configuration, while six Martin Audio XE300 wedges provided stage monitoring.
Finally, in the Conference Room, the Winter Gardens’ house system of twelve WPS sub-compact line array elements per side was supplemented by dBS-supplied Martin Audio FlexPoint FP12 cabinets as stage monitors.
“This festival is a very fast-paced environment”, says Roberts. “We had over 120 bands across our stages during the four days of the festival. The Martin Audio systems have been fantastic. We had a crew that knows the systems inside and out, which helped us achieve the sound quality and consistency we needed across every room.”
The final word comes from front-of-house engineer Arran Azz Culpan, who has mixed the Ballroom stage at Rebellion for many years. “It’s a fantastic gig”, he says. “Rebellion is like a big family, the whole punk scene is amazing. I know this room very well, and this was my first time running Martin Audio WPL in here. It sounded great.”
(Photos: Martin Audio)
