Luc Peumans from Belgian creative lighting design practice Painting With Light sprinkled his own distinctive variety of fairy dust on Peter Pan produced by Music Hall Events, in the process crafting a provocative, emotive and high impact lighting design.

Peter Pan – which is just opening in Dubai after an initial run in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK – is characterised by an all-action narrative that includes free flying (wireless – courtesy of a massive sub-stage wind turbine), dramatic visual effects, pyro and stunning fully 3D mapped digital scenery.

Peumans has worked on many projects for the producers, and once again he imagineered a careful mix of spectacle and visual style to match the vibe, energy and magic of the show.

The concept for this version of Peter Pan was developed by Creative Director Luc Petit and Music Hall’s Geert Allaert. Peumans’ brief was to provide “epic arena style lighting’ to suit and highlight the action within the fast flowing video montages, slick choreography and contemporary staging.

With this starting point Peumans adopted several special techniques including that of “sharp focusing’ to complement and work harmoniously with all the other visual elements.

One challenge was the sheer scale and size of the set – the main piece on which most of the forestage action takes place is 25 metres in diameter – and because the set shifts so rapidly and there is a lot of simultaneous movement, correct lighting is absolutely fundamental in bringing the audience’s attention to where it needs to be focused.

“I basically try and sculpt the light onto the actors without interfering with the impact of the video or the flying,’ explains Peumans.

While the set projections will dictate the mood and colouration of the scenes, from there action and detail had to be pinpointed very precisely.

With 140 moving fixtures – a mix of several major brands – the lighting rig is an expedient for the size and complexity of the show, but Peumans is a master of making every instrument work and be properly “multi-functional’.

For the UK and Europe, 38 x Clay Paky Alpha Profile 1500s provide the main key-lighting, which Peumans comments are ideal for tight framing and those powerful “sharp focuses’ that are one of his trademarks on this production.

Forty Five Vari*Lite VL3000 Spots were utilised for gobo projections, texturing the floor and other semi-scenic tasks, while 20 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 1200s and 36 x Robe ROBIN LEDWash 600s were used generally to wash the floor and other performance areas, extending the colours and hues of the video projections across the performance space as well as providing dynamic lighting for the actors.
He used the top-hat attachment on both sets of LEDWashes to reduce the glare and diffuse the lightsource further.

TourLED 42 LED PARs were strategically positioned for up-lighting below the various floor traps together with two ADB ALC4-2 LED floods.

Four specially modified Clay Paky Alpha Spot 1500s were utilised as follow spots – a special invention by Peumans that he finds ideal for controlling the intensity in conjunction with the beam size for maximum accuracy.

Another production challenge was making the lighting rig fully tourable, practical, quick and straightforward to rig, so that most lighting units were fitted into pre-rigged trussing sections in which they also travelled for the European dates.
Painting With Light’s Paco Mispelters worked with Peumans on programming the show onto the GrandMA2 full size console, initially during production rehearsals at the Forest National in Brussels and also during pre-production at the NEC Arena in Birmingham prior to the show opening in the UK.

Lighting is operated on the tour by Cedric Estermans.

Lighting and sound equipment for the European and UK leg was supplied by Phlippo Showlights from Lier in Belgium.

The video, including 18 Barco 22K projectors, was supplied by Line from Germany with content created by Dirty Monitor, and the 2D and 3D flying systems and automation were engineered by TAIT.

For the short run in Dubai – where it is billed as “The biggest and most glamorous production yet to be seen in the region’, lighting equipment is supplied by locally based Protec and AED Rent from Belgium.