Lighting designer Tim Routledge is working with Beyoncé for the first time and has created the lighting design for her The Formation World Tour. As this tour is bigger than Beyoncé’s last solo tour and is stadium-sized, Routledge had the enormous task of lighting the superstar and her dancers around a central monolith structure that both rotates and opens. Read Part One!
“There is obviously one massive lighting statement that goes without hiding, and that’s the strobe horizon. This curved structure houses 602 SGM Q-7 strobes,” Routledge explains. “This fixture was my immediate choice for the project. I needed a bright color changing source that had huge impact and, most of all, was weatherproof. Es [Devlin, production designer] also really wanted any fixtures to be rectangular. She isn’t a fan of circular sources, and I agree that on this show, with our clean monolith, a rectangular source for the horizon wall was the right direction. So the Q-7 was the obvious choice. I just needed to be able to source enough of them, and they had to be color matched, which meant they were all brand new. A few vendors gulped when they saw the spec! SGM were superb in their support of me on this show and worked closely with Neg Earth to achieve what I needed. They also lent me 8 SGM G-Spots to cross light the B-stage, which again needed to be waterproof.”
He explains that the rest of the lighting rig around the main stage had to be created around the monolith. “How do you separate Beyoncé from this huge screen behind her and give the show any depth? There were various iterations of how we would do this, and in the end, we came back to where I started on my first drawing: some low skids attached to the monolith that could track when it opened and rotate with it when it spun,” says the lighting designer. “A lot of the thinking behind this changed over the course of rehearsals. First those lights were always in show so a knee-jerk reaction was to remove them but then you lose any depth behind the choreo so they returned in various forms, and we settled on what we have now: sixteen Robe BMFLs on each side of the monolith interspersed with Harman Martin Professional Atomic 3000 LED strobes.”
The other main backlight and sidelight systems were also very much dependent on the position of the monolith. “The horizon gave me a position but the distance to center stage was 25m [82'] from top of horizon to Beyoncé, so a large fixture was needed. I also had the huge problem of whenever you wanted backlight, the monolith was always in the way,” he explains. “So I added two runs of lights. On top of the horizon are Clay Paky Mythos units as my spot and beam fixtures, and hanging underneath are a long row of Robe BMFLs as my wash fixtures. They are spots, but at the distance I was throwing and to still keep a not too wide beam, the spot was a better choice to fill the stage with color. This double row of fixtures gave me a wide curtain of light that could be seen in different ways, depending on which way the monolith was rotated or opened. I then had the brunt of my key light for choreo, which could only really go on the side of the PA towers. We created a very neat solution of short 5' pre-rig trusses that hung underneath each other like a big train. It looked neat and loaded with Robe BMFLs and Harman Martin Professional Mac Viper AirFX units that gave me my ability to actually light people onstage. Eight Robe BMFLs on each side of the stage on the floor were the real workhorses of the show. They cross lit the stage and gave me the ability to punch light into the choreo. With sightlines, the monolith and no roof, it was one of my hardest shows to light.”
Routledge also added lighting to the monolith. “The monolith housed a rig of strobes and Clay Paky Mythos on four moving trusses and six vertical ladders. These had to be able to move and track and rotate with the monolith, which was no mean feat, but gave me a flexible package depending on whatever was going to be created inside the monolith.”
The monolith also created complications of where to put followspots. He explains, “There was nowhere to put a back spot on Beyoncé. The monolith was always in the way, unless it was opened, so inside I have some PRG Ground Control Spots and two on the side PA towers—my only way to get any true backlight. The side ones are used a lot as they are the only ones that I can use all the time. We do a lot of strobing and colored spots with them for a number of camera effects. We had six other 4k Robert Juliat Lancelets for front light: four out front and two in the audience for B-stage reverses.”
Routledge says there were five versions of the plot before the team got to the workshop site. “The kit was all shipped from the UK by Neg Earth,” he says. “They are my preferred rental vendor and are simply up for any challenge. The only real issue in bringing everything over from the UK was that it took three to four weeks to ship it to Rock Lititz in Pennsylvania on a slow boat. My rig had to be issued well before rehearsals so before we even opened a box at load-in the design process had moved on. Nick Barton and his formidable team took those early changes and ran with them.”
The use of pre-viz was, and is, absolutely essential for creating and touring The Formation World Tour. “We used pre-vis every single day, and in fact, lighting director Jon Rouse is still using it every day on the road,” he says. “Formation is an outdoor show, and dark time was precious so when the sun was shining, we hit the pre-vis. When the monolith was in the completely the wrong position for us to work, we hit the pre-vis. Jon and I did afternoon pre-vis, evening rehearsals, and then overnight programming after rehearsals. The show is a changeable beast, with set lists, compositions, choreo, and gags all changing as it tours. The schedule leaves no time for reprogramming overnight so Jon uses pre-vis to make the changes that Beyoncé is looking for at each show. The team discusses what is feasible for the next show in terms of changes, and the pre-vis remains an invaluable tool. I created the 3D model we are using, and it has the ability to rotate and open the monolith as well as move the rig that is inside it. This is also a fully timecoded show. It’s busy, and music changes a lot as new versions and timings of the show and automation moves means edits; all this work is done in pre-vis so we don’t waste valuable dark time on updating timing.”
Routledge is effusive about his working relationship with Rouse. “I couldn’t have achieved this show without my good friend and confidante Jon Rouse; he has been by my side since I got the gig. We talked throughout the design process as it was going to be his baby once it hit the road. Whilst I was able to just about fit in the show into my diary this year, I was unable to stay with it, and Jon is the perfect choice. He is creative, methodical, and calm. This is an ever-changing beast of a show, and I know few other lighting directors who would keep his nerve though all the changes. We spent six weeks day and night together, putting the show together and still came out as friends. He was a true asset to my small team.” Also assisting on the initial prep in London was assistant Tom Young.
Steven Battaglia has worked in theatre production and operations for more than 12 years. He has been the operations manager at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York for the last six years and also works as a production manager and lighting designer in his spare time.
Scroll through the gallery to read more about Stageco’s work on the tour, and stay tuned for more coverage in our Project In Focus, sponsored by SGM.