Lighting designer Andre Beekmans from design studio The Art of Light buckled up with Scooter on their “Thirty Rough & Dirty” tour celebrating 30 years.
Beekmans technical rider specifies several Robe moving lights which included 78 Pointes, 45 Spiiders, 82 Tetra2s and three FORTES used as follow spots on a remote follow system.
Beekmans started working with Scooter in 2022 on a stadium tour of German-speaking countries.
One of Beekmans starting points for Thirty, Rough & Dirty’s production lighting design was Maarten Hoogland’s set which includes six large LED screens complete with LED headers which largely dictated where the lighting positions were, so he filled up all the gaps with fixtures, mostly rigged on custom ladders between the video surfaces.
Ahead of imagining the design, Beekmans had also chatted to Scooter lead singer HP Baxxter: “He really likes lighting to have a great impact onstage and is very tuned in to how this emotionally affects the fans,” explained Andre.
The 82 Terta2s outline the set and all the LED screens. He wanted Tetras specifically for the lensing effects and the power of the movement enabling big sweeps of light to flash across, up and down the performance space. This many fixtures “worked brilliantly in adding proper layers of lighting,” he explained,
As they had the relative luxury of time ahead of the tour at lighting vendor TDA Clair’s facilities in Bottrop, Germany, he was able to craft numerous Tetra2 looks.
“Scooter shows are very colourful and lively,” stated Andre, “So having the Tetra2s to hand I was able to create some real optical and brain teasing effects.” He also explained that HP loves beams and actively wants them in the show to help get the energy off the stage and out into the audience.
“Pointes have everything we needed,” said Beekmans. “Prisms, fast colour changing, and rapid movement and they are small, lightweight and unobtrusive.”
Spiiders have long been one of his favourites and go-tos, and they can be found in most of his designs. Here they are positioned in a matrix grid below the ceiling set piece above the two centre most screens. The dynamic zoom and extra features like the Flower Effect make Spiiders more versatile.
Two of the three FORTES are positioned on the front truss with one upstage centre, all linked together and used as follow spots via a remote operating system.
Talking about the challenges of lighting the tour, Beekmans said: “While it is essentially dance music, there’s also a lot of rock in there so it covers a vast range, all of which is vibrant and present, so there is a lot of nuances needing to be detailed with lighting.”
The show is mostly run from timecode which makes operating a bit more flexible, Beekmans programmed the show and was out on the first 6 gigs, then handed over to Rik Verschuren as on-the-road lighting director and operator for the rest of the tour, with Maxim Rath touring with the band for all the summer festival shows – both employed by The Art of Light.
Beekmans has enjoyed working on a touring show with the continuity of the same setup each night, he concluded: “You can plan design ideas that will work and can evolve over a longer period, and there is also room for refinement and developments as needed.”
