Kygo's South American Tour's Magic Reflected by Lorcan Clarke with CHAUVET Professional

	"For me, designing lighting on a show like this isn't about having the brightest lights or having all fixtures flashing simultaneously," says Lorcan. "The programming needs to be deliberate." Photo: Alive Coverage

Lorcan Clarke has created captivating lighting looks in shows all over the world, each of them distinctive but all of them emanating from the same exact place - the song.

"The starting point for me is always the song," says the Irish-born designer who is now based in San Francisco. "The energy, arrangement, and emotion of the track dictate where the programming goes. After the looks are programmed, the focus shifts to making the lighting, video, lasers, and music feel fully connected."

That approach made Clarke a natural fit for Kygo when he became the artist's lighting designer in 2023. Lorcan's knack for flowing with Kygo's music was on full display this March when he lit the artist's two-hour set at Costa 21 in Lima. The show took place on a 20m wide by 17m-deep stage, and featured bold aerial effects and audience lighting, fast-moving laser displays, dominating video walls, and more. Beyond the effects, there was also the marriage between lighting and music. It was this that enhanced the special aura on stage and deepened the appreciation of Kygo's inspired performance. "For me, designing lighting on a show like this isn't about having the brightest lights or having all fixtures flashing simultaneously," says Lorcan. "The programming needs to be deliberate.

"At first glance this can read as a DJ show, but behind the scenes it leans much closer to a full live production. There are multiple live singers throughout the set, Kygo himself plays piano and a Moog synth. The show moves between intimate musical moments and large-scale festival headline moments. The lighting has to support all of this without overwhelming it. We try to avoid making everything big all the time. If every song is full intensity, then the magic can begin to fade."

Helping Lorcan navigate his way through this delicately balanced narrative is a collection of 122 CHAUVET Professional fixtures supplied by Dblux S.A.C. Included in this mix were 46 Maverick Storm 1 Hybrids, 44 Maverick Storm 3 BeamWashes, 14 Maverick Storm 4 Profiles, 16 COLORado PXL Bar 16 motorized battens and two Ovation B565 FC batten-style washes.

Described by Clarke as the "main aerial workhorses" of his rig, the hybrids and beam- washes were spread across all five trusses, while the profile units were relied on for specials and lighting piano solos. For their part the PXL units served as back lights and eye candy effects, while the Ovation B565 FC's were relied on for the camera lighting in the DJ booth.

In keeping with the philosophy of smoothly integrating the entire production to more fully support the artist on stage, Lorcan coordinated lighting with every facet of the show's video. "Lighting and video are both a major part of how the Kygo show is built," he says. "We have fantastic video content created by an incredibly talented team. Sometimes video will lead the look, and the lighting takes a more architectural or atmospheric role. Other times, the lighting takes over and the screen becomes more of a backdrop. The key thing is that they are not competing with each other. The goal is for lighting and video to serve the same moment, instead of feeling like separate layers."

Lorcan is quick to give credit to the entire touring team for fusing all the various production elements into a cohesive show. "This was a fantastic collaborative effort beginning with Mattie Evans and the NTRP team, Joel Richardson, and Lizette Meinholt, who handled production management and logistics for the run," he says: "I am also very grateful for the work of our tour manager, Rich Jones; musical/creative director, Sean Lascelles; Photon Addicts for the flown design; Hi-Scream for the floor design; Jade Frasey, who served as operating LD for this show; John Dickson of JD3 Lasers; Ross James at FOH; Darren Clark, our stage manager; Greg Karas for playback; Toby Sawyer for SFX; and Dan Fletcher and Ryan Sheppard of Dark Matter for video."

Looking back on the South American tour, Lorcan says, "Kygo's music has a sound people recognize straight away. It has that tropical, melodic, uplifting sound, but there's also a lot of emotion in the music." Lighting, he adds, "has to be able to live within both" of these musical energies.