This year’s main stage production and lighting design for Spain’s Medusa festival by Eduardo Valverde and a team from his design studio Experiencias Visuales (EV) included 72 MegaPointes and 12 BMFL WashBeams. These lights were at the heart of a visual environment created.
It was EV’s first time designing the Main Stage for the event organisers, Andreu Piqueras and Javier Crecente, and the setting was evolved working closely with Brok Décor who co-ordinated the construction and setup of the impressive scenic elements including LED screens. This year’s theme was “Age of Times,” so the stage represented a gigantic time machine.
The BMFLs were rigged on the FOH structure and utilised for front lighting of the decor from that angle, working in conjunction with the onstage lights dotted around the structures. The MegaPointes were the main effects lights on stage, and they were scattered everywhere mainly rigged to various structural elements across the 50-metre-wide span.
“The same fixture offers a good spot and an exceptional beam,” noted Eduardo, who added that due to its reduced weight, expedient size, and an array of very strong and intense colours, “is perfect for illuminating stages with lots of LED screens and strobes.”
Eduardo explained the advantages of having the video, set design and lighting team in-house at EV: “We collaborate from the inception of the process and ensure that each aspect is designed and studied carefully in tandem with the others.”
The main challenge this year was harmonising everything so the stage design matched the screens and in turn the screen content also made the surfaces look integrated with their positioning. With over 300 square metres of LED in the stage architecture, creating tricks like intensity masks were essential to boost the blending of these two disciplines.
Around 400 lights in total were used on the 2023 Medusa Festival Main Stage, all programmed and operated for the event by EV’s principal systems engineer, Juan Manuel Lazaro, and his colleague David Carrasquilla. The video content creative was produced by David Inlines and the VJ / operator was Jonay Sanchez.
Main Stage lighting equipment was supplied to the event by Proyect Arte, whose Robe fixtures were purchased from Spanish distributor, EARPRO&EES.
