Robe Gear on Hans Zimmer's Next Level Tour

	The 50 iFORTE LTXs are rigged on three trusses -- rear, front, and advanced -- giving horizontal coverage across these three eyeline perspective points. Photo: Suzanne Teresa @suzanneterezaphoto

John Featherstone and his daughter Hailey Featherstone, both of Lightswitch, created the lighting design for film composer Hans Zimmer's current The Next Level World Tour. Hailey is out on the road as lighting director, together with 225 Robe moving lights and 13 RoboSpot Systems, among other lights.

John's journey with Hans Zimmer started five years ago; on this tour, the composer wanted to shift the musical direction away from being orchestral in style, in favor of his roots in the German electronic punk and synth underground scene.

"It needed to be distinctively a Hans show but different," says John, adding that the brief was complex. Even with plenty of performers onstage, the show's look is more industrial, clubby, and raw while also offering epic looks to match the sounds that have defined Zimmer's career. "It is a highly collaborative process with Hans himself, art director Derek McLane, screen video producer Tom Bairstow, musical director Steven Doar, and front-of-house engineer Colin Pink," John adds. The stage set is over 20' tall, 40' deep, and 56' wide and includes a huge, fully functional, modular synth that dominates the central space. An African choir, brass section, plus other musicians, vocalists, and performers, come on and off the set's upper levels, with Zimmer and his core band anchored down below. The stage is backed by a large LED screen, with another screen forming a header over the front of the stage.

The designers, who needed super-bright fixtures and careful placements, opted for advanced, front, back, and side trusses, with four large, automated pod trusses vertically aligned across the central stage area.

The 50 iFORTE LTXs are rigged on three trusses -- rear, front, and advanced -- giving horizontal coverage across these three eyeline perspective points. While the previous tour relied on Robe MegaPointes, John notes, "We wanted a light that was evocative of what we were doing before but with a really big, beautiful beam and a good zoom." Hailey adds, "We needed a versatile, punchy, and theatrical light." She notes the iFORTE LTXs' help in creating a slick sheet-of-light look. The units are also used extensively for specials and big moments.

The 14 standard iFORTES are rigged on the stage-left and stage-right roof side trusses and downstage, the only viable side light positions. These units are essential in building softer and more theatrical looks for specific moments in the music. "Hans' music is very emotive and expressive; whatever the style he is playing, there is this massive dynamic range that needs accenting appropriately," John adds.

There are 13 iFORTE LTX FS followspot fixtures: eight on the front truss, two on the two upstage side trusses, two on the upstage section of the two outer over-stage pods, and one upstage center high up on the mother grid, each running on a separate RoboSpot BaseStation, with the operators usually positioned in the stage right wings. European and UK lighting contractor Neg Earth Lights (NEL) built special rapid-deployment dollies for the BaseStations. In "follow" mode, the operators run iris and dimmer channels with all other parameters controlled via the lighting console, including a global master dimmer, as Hailey calls the whole show.

Seventy-six iESPRITE LTLs are rigged on the four over-stage pod trusses. Arranged in two rows of nine per pod, they fulfil multiple functions, with the automated pods effectively forming the backbone of the lighting rig. Hailey notes that the iESPRITE LTLs have "a super-usable zoom range, and we are really pushing them hard and utilizing a lot of tricks."

Twenty-five of the show's 29 MegaPointes are placed on an automated truss just behind the top of the back riser. It moves from its lower home position to a high trim where beams can peep over the downstage screen. The units also extensively light the choir. The remaining four MegaPoines light the aerial performer who flies in a mirrored suit, created by Be the Disco Ball, during a rendition of the soundtrack to the 2014 film Interstellar. Completing the rig's Robe component are 43 Tetra2 moving LED battens, lining the edges of each stage level, adding to the postmodern techno look, and producing sheet-of-light looks. They are also helpful for expanding the notion of space in larger venues.

In a lengthy show, "the energy levels ebb and flow," says John. "We tend to leave plenty up our sleeve for the second half." The screen is also used sparingly, almost like a scenic animation, so the show's arc is well-paced and carefully curated, leading up to a big rock finale.

John and Hailey worked with Chris Herman as co-designer and lighting programmer. Zach Boebel is the lighting director on the road and also calls the spot cues together with Hailey.

The lighting crew chief is Jonathan Shelley Smith, and the touring techs across the two EU legs of the tour are Sam Blakemore, Sam Morley, Stephanie Felstead, Bram Depaepe, Rachel Axton, Jonathan Sellers, Lyle McNally, Paul Howling, Cian Green, Davide Palumbi, Beatrice Banionyte, and James Gould. They are working closely with the automation team comprising Euan Odd, Kimi Bennet, and Giovanni Mota.