Germany - The lighting for Adele’s record-breaking Adele in Munich residency featured over 250 Robe Forte moving lights, split into 223 iForte LTXs used for multiple key lighting positions for the artist and 36 iFortes dedicated to lighting the band.
13 Robe iBolts were also part of the lighting aesthetic developed by Cory FitzGerald and the creative team, led by show director Kim Gavin, to embrace all the challenges and demands of this epic proportioned show by the global superstar. All lighting equipment was supplied by UK-based Neg Earth Lights and the screen was constructed by Solotech.
The 10 blockbusting shows took place over five weekends during the month of August 2024, and were production directed by Paul English. The performances were enjoyed by 730,000 people, also breaking the record for the highest attendance of any ‘concert residency’ outside Las Vegas.
The overall scenography design concept was delivered by Stufish Entertainment Architects.
FitzGerald started working for Adele in 2022 during her upgraded Las Vegas residency, and also designed lighting for her BST Hyde Park, London shows in the same year.
The giant, seamless curved screen idea was already in place, so this was a major starting point for lighting. Being a completely bespoke build, FitzGerald and his team were able to add some towers and other higher lighting positions, plus quantities of floor lighting during the early phases of the ideation process following detailed negotiations with other tech departments like audio.
The screen and the vast overall dimensions of the performance space meant he needed bright and powerful fixtures, so Robe’s iForte LTX was already in his head, and he soon decided to use these fixtures for key lighting Adele as she moved around the space.
Lighting was vital “to recreate some of the theatrical style and ambience of Las Vegas in this completely new and different context,” he elucidated, seeking to combine the drama of beautiful, bespoke big operatic looks with the video elements – both IMAG and playback content – in a poetic harmony.
Lighting the show for daylight, dusk and darkness was another challenge, as being mid-summer, all the performances had to be aligned with that natural transition.
The 112 iFortes used for key lighting were positioned on 11 FOH towers in batches of eight or 12 fixtures per tower, which varied in throw distance (to the stage) from between 50 and 400ft depending on the stage positions they were targeting.
25 of these iForte LTXs were running on a tag-and-anchor tracking system with another two running on two Robe FPV RoboSpot systems for full flexibility, with up to 18 iForte LTXs at a time deployed to combat direct sunlight during parts of some performances.
The 13 iBolts were a late addition to the lighting plot. Five iBolts were rigged on the two ‘scroll towers’ on either end of the screen, with three upstage centre, used for back light effects. FitzGerald loved them: “They are super-bright, very controllable, have lots of options, great looking gobo effects and really punch through everything.”
They produced “cool back lighting plus stylish back-of-camera looks” for the live mix cut by the show’s creative director Matt Askem, as well as complemented the overall impressive architectural installation with “big, bold and purposeful looks”.
The 36 standard Fortes were positioned around the structures for band key lighting.
FitzGerald’s lighting director for Munich was Nick van Nostrand, who also ran lighting for the last Las Vegas residency together with programmer Davy Martinez. “We had all learned a lot from Las Vegas in terms of how to use scale to our advantage,” concluded FitzGerald, who also shouted out Keith Johnson, crew chief, and Joao Magalhaes, systems engineer, from Neg Earth Lights for their “amazing work making it happen”.
Adele in Munich was production directed by Paul English. The structures were built by Stageco (black steel) and TAIT (automation and staging); the video content was produced by Treatment Studio, overseen by Matt Askem; Clair Global supplied audio, communications, radios and data services, sitewide production IT and WiFi infrastructure. Creative production of the extensive ‘Adele World’ public area that was part of the overall 75,000sq.m stadium site was delivered by LarMac LIVE.
