Beginning his journey as a composer in the ’70s, Hans Zimmer continues his worldwide tour that has already traversed the world over the past two years and continues into 2025. Travelling through his discography of grand filmic scores – the maestro’s show features subtle nods to the colour palettes of his wide filmography from Inception through to The Lion King.
Catching up with father and daughter duo John Featherstone, Co Show-Designer, and Hailey Featherstone, Lighting Operator, TPi delves into the design that utilises exclusively Robe fixtures.
“There are these familial threads through everything Hans does,” John began. “He liked what we did, and it resonated with him and because the show was originally going to start in 2021, we began designing in 2020 and when the tour got pushed to 2022, it meant that we had this two-year period where we were fine-tuning the design and finessing the full creative.
“The extra time meant that we could really parse the design. The ability to step away from something for a minute is very beneficial – it’s easy to get too close to something, but one thing I will always focus on is that for the audience it is immediate and visceral and taking that time to step away has improved our designs tenfold.”
With Lightswitch on board, the team took to the challenge with acclaimed Broadway designers Derek McLane and Peter Nigrini to create a design that blended the team’s creativity. “The entire creative team have a deeply musical background, so we use that as our north star and ask ourselves, ‘Does this serve the music?’ ‘Does it help connect every seat in a venue to the music, no matter how far away?’” John continued.
Praising colleague, Chris Herman, Lighting Programmer on the tour, Hailey discussed how the trio’s differing previous experience aided the striking lighting. “Chris is a wizard; he comes from a theatre and Broadway touring background, while John comes from fundamentally rock and roll and I have studied theatre design,” she explained. “It helps us pick up on things that are important to all three of us or things we might not have noticed. It makes all the difference.”
The rig is made up exclusively of Robe fixtures, supplied by LMG Touring, including 168 MegaPointes, 22 BMFL WashBeams, nine BMFL Followspots, 26 Tetra1s, and 31 Tetra2s, all controlled through an MA Lighting grandMA3. “The MegaPointes are our workhorse fixture – they make up most of the rig, being both the whole top light and side lights on the show. We also have some of them on the low-angle side light from the floor,” Hailey added. “We then have front lights which are the BMFL WashBeams and with the Tetra1 and Tetra2s lined up around the various musicians on stage.”
Adding to the atmosphere were four MDG TheONE Hazers. “Haze is a big part of the show,” John commented. “We thought it might be a problem for the vocalists but after having spoken to some of our key performer’s ear, nose and throat doctors, they approved the atmospheric generators almost immediately.”
The first conceptual designs for the tour were first done in SketchUp and as John said, the collective moved over to Unreal Engine for Zimmer. “Hans is highly visual, so we took the leap into Unreal Engine and modelled it in there to show him the design cinematically,” John explained. “Pre-visualisation is a very big part of the movie industry so he’s used to the vocabulary, which meant that once we got into a spot he liked, we could go back to our usual software, which is Vectorworks.”
Lighting Programmer, Herman, commented on the abundance of cues that worked on the tour. “We are often asked how many cues are on the show, and across the 14 suites there are approximately 2200 triggered cues which doesn’t include the manuals that Hailey runs during the show while calling the nine FollowSpots,” Herman said. “There are also 140 focus presets that Hailey does an amazing job of keeping looking tight.”
Working together as a team of professionals, it can be easy for onlookers not to spot the familial tie. “We are always growing and figuring out new ways to collaborate while being respectful of each other as creative individuals,” Hailey said. “Being able to keep our integrity as individual designers is important to us and this process has proved that, but it is absolutely fabulous.”
“We’ve always been a family that takes pride in making things,” John added. “There’s no better collaboration than that of family. It’s important that people understand that we’re independent professionals as well as being able to work together harmoniously.
“Everybody is fighting the good fight for the forces of creativity and to do that with your kids, there is nothing better,” he concluded.
Coming to the end of 2024, The Hans Zimmer Live team and its production concluded in Las Vegas at the T-Mobile Arena in October but will return to the US and Asia in the New Year. The crew will then head to Europe and the UK next Autumn, with an entirely new design from Lightswitch…
Words: Alicia Pollitt
Photos: Suzanne Teresa
