Rock in Rio Lisbon 2024 enlisted Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD) for the lighting design of this year’s edition.
WBD is no stranger to Rock in Rio, having been involved as the main lighting designers since the festival’s inception. The design team included Terry Cook, John Coman, and Aiden Bromley of WBD. The lighting team in Portugal consisted of Pixel Light as their main suppliers, with Ramiro Martins acting as the bridge between WBD, Pixel Light, and the incoming LDs; Martins also spearheaded the inclusion of Wysiwyg in the festival.
“Using Wysiwyg was essential for us,” said Martins. “The software’s precision in lighting calculations allowed us to visualize and plan our designs down to the smallest detail. This level of accuracy is crucial when you’re working on a festival of this scale.”
Pixel Light, the company responsible for supplying the lighting for the festival, went above and beyond to support the incoming lighting designers. They set up an on-site Wysiwyg room, a dedicated space where the band’s lighting designers could do their pre-programming before the show.
“The on-site Wysiwyg room provided by Pixel Light was a game-changer,” Martins noted. “It gave the lighting designers from various bands the flexibility to customize their setups and make any necessary adjustments before the live performance. This not only saved us time but also ensured that the lighting was perfect for each act.” The meticulous planning and execution, supported by Wysiwyg, ensured that each performance was a visual masterpiece.
“Wysiwyg has become the de facto standard for lighting design, and it’s easy to see why,” Martins remarked. “The software’s precision, ease of use, and powerful CAD tools make it an indispensable part of our toolkit. Our pre-production work at RiR wouldn’t have been the same without it.”
One of the standout features of Wysiwyg is its render quality. With Wysiwyg Perform, lighting designers can achieve realistic visualisations, ensuring that their creative vision is accurately represented. “The high render quality of Wysiwyg Perform allowed us to visualise our designs with incredible accuracy,” Martins shared. “Knowing that the photometric values are so precise gave us confidence that what we saw in Wysiwyg would be exactly what the audience experienced during the live shows.”
“Wysiwyg’s ease of use definitely allowed us to be more creative with our designs,” Martins explained. “The ability to visualize our ideas before implementing them was invaluable.”
