Launching her fourth major concert tour for her new album, "Artpop," Lady Gaga is supporting her innovative and decadent stage performance with high-end lighting fixtures and projectors from Clay Paky.
The "ArtRave: The Artpop Ball" tour began in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on May 4 and has been moving across the globe with performances in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania planned.
"Production and lighting designer Roy Bennett's approach to the show was to make it an immersive rave that reflected Gaga's non-stop party aesthetic," programmer Jason Baeri told Live Design Online. "That means active, alive, vibrant and high energy — it requires us to be just as active on stage as in the crowd. The audience is every bit as much a set piece as they are a room of spectators, so we had to include them as part of Gaga's same party not just watching the spectacle from afar. Cue wise, that's almost like programming two shows at once: Both had to behave as one cohesive element."
Bennet noted that he's using 100 to 200 lights for the main effects throughout Gaga's performance, incorporating both the stage and the audience to maximize the "rave vibe" of the show. They are also using an upstage video wall integrated into the lighting design.
According to Baeri the biggest challenge, however, was the data management aspect of the lighting programming. The lighting has to match the intensity and variety of Gaga's music, and with thousands of pixels being used in nearly every configuration imaginable, this presents a major stress point on the systems being used. This is why they opted for Clay Paky's high-quality lighting solutions.
For any live performance, lighting is critical for engaging and involving the crowd. GoboSource can help you select the right projectors for your needs, as well as any gobo image designs, lenses and lights you might need.
