Multi award winning Italian singer / songwriter and music producer Laura Pausini
started her 2016 world touring campaign in support of her new “Simili’ studio album
with a brand new lighting design created by Alain Corthout and Ignace D’Haese from
Belgian based creative visual design practice, Arf & Yes.
This includes 128 x Robe Pointes and 109 x BMFL WashBeams which are right at the
centre of a complex and eye-catching rig.
The tour kicked off with 5 large stadium dates – all completely sold out – in Italy for
which the set and video was designed by Igor Ronchese from Tekset based in
Paderno Dugnano. It now continues in the U.S. where Pausini has a massive
following especially amongst the Hispanic population, and then Latin America where
she is also hugely popular. At the 27th Lo Nuestro Awards in 2015 she stated that
although being Italian, “half of my heart beats Latino’.
It was the Latino connection that also brought her into contact with Corthout, who
has sprinkled his lighting flair and imagination on the live shows for a number of
high profile Latin music stars including Juanes, Alejandro Fernandez, Chayanne and
many more.
Corthout and D’Haese were asked to pitch for the tour … Pausini and her
management loved their proposal and they won the job, specifying the Pointes and
BMFLs amongst other fixtures.
The Pointes are rigged on eight vertical ladders and four trussing towers upstage –
16 Pointes per ladder and 32 Pointes per tower. They are used for epic wide-stage
looks and retina-burning sweeps and effects across the performance area and out
into the audience.
Eighty-five BMFL WashBeams are positioned on 5 “V’-shaped trusses used as
backlight, with 24 used as filler and key lighting for the band.
These fixtures were specified “Because you can never go wrong with Pointes or
BMFLs’ states Corthout.
He likes the intense brightness of the BMFLs, plus the frost filter and the speed of
all the parameters.
A keen Pointe user for the last three years since the fixture was launched, these are
his go-to well-priced lightweight fixtures available almost everywhere, which he
uses repeatedly in spot and beam modes and also as follow spots!
Lighting equipment was supplied in Italy by Agora. The vendor in the U.S. is
Clearwing and for the 7 shows in Mexico it will be Audio Systems del Norte from
Monterrey.
Corthout, a lighting professional for the last 20 years, is known for his lateral
thinking and off-beat approach to lighting and visual design – a feature of the
creative tour de force that is Ghent based Arf & Yes. He has been using Robe
products regularly in his work for the last 4 years.