GLP at Peter Maffay's Loves Places Open-Air Shows

	"With GLP, I know my own colors, and I know I can get to where I want to be very fast," says Jackle. Photo: Paul Gartner

The Romanian-German singer and composer Peter Maffay stepped away from conventional touring after his 2023 farewell run. Since then, as in 2026, he has returned each summer with a series of individual concerts tied to his album Love Places, playing venues that either hold personal significance for him or that lend a distinctive atmosphere to the evening. Lighting designer Gunter Jackle specified 16 GLP Creos and 80 GLP impression X5 wash fixtures for the 2026 shows.

Maffay's long-standing designer has worked with the artist for many years and ranks among the most experienced live lighting practitioners in Germany. The 2026 Love Places shows presented a different problem from a continuous tour with a fixed equipment pool. Every venue brought its own structural conditions, sightlines, and distances. A compact core of equipment travelled with the production, with further material added locally depending on the site.

For Jackle, that means the central tools had to be powerful, quick to integrate, and predictable in color, which is why he went with a substantial GLP element.

"On productions like these, a setup has to work in very different places," the designer says. "The less friction I have between different systems, the faster I get to a clean result. With GLP, I know the color mixing, and I know the colors will sit where I want them."

"With Maffay, the first thing you have to do is get 14 people bright on an open-air stage," Jackle says. "That sounds banal, but it is often the decisive point. On open-airs, the front truss frequently sits further back than you would like. You need fixtures that genuinely help you. I can use the Creos conventionally as a flood. I can use them as side light. And on top of that, they look like something. I get a great deal of function and design in very little space, which is enormously valuable on productions like these.

"I try to work with as few different manufacturers as possible," he adds. "Not as a matter of principle, but because it makes the work simpler and cleaner. When color mixing, dimming behavior, and basic character all match up, I arrive at a good, reproducible result more quickly. With GLP, I know my own colors, and I know I can get to where I want to be very fast.

"These days, you think about the camera automatically as a lighting designer," he notes. "You see immediately when colors don't go together or when faces aren't cleanly readable. With GLP, I take my palette, adapt it, and I can rely on it working.

"At the end of the day, what I want is to play the lights along with a good band," he says. "I don't want to spend my time managing technical friction because colors won't come together or fixtures behave differently from how I expected. I need tools that give me freedom.

"I feel a strong connection to GLP, and [account director] Olli Schwendke always supports me superbly," Jackle concludes. "The equipment has proved itself across many productions. When you're working with a large band in special places, that trust is exactly what you need. Then, you can concentrate on what it's actually about -- the music, the atmosphere and the moment."