Joburg Witnesses Katy Perry

Witness the Light

Katy Perry’s Witness: The Tour opens with a powerful image of Perry’s eye on an immense eye-shaped LED screen, designed by Es Devlin. The opening image transforms into a galaxy and takes the audience on a journey through outer space before opening to reveal Perry riding upon a star-shaped structure, in an avant-garde red catsuit that has become an iconic image of the show.

Halpin explains that he worked in close collaboration with Devlin to develop a lighting rig that would embrace the enormous eye-shaped LED screen, rather than against it. “I wanted to make sure that the lighting design complemented not only the screen’s shape but was also able to compete with the incredible amount of light emitting from it,” Halpin points out.

According to Halpin, the lighting and video design team worked in close collaboration with Gabriel Coutu Dumont and JT Rooney of Silent Partners Studio during the development phase of the show to ensure that the screen content and lighting design worked together seamlessly. “We planned out certain songs where the screen would be dominant with narrative content and others where the screens would act as more of a light source,” Halpin explained in an interview with PLSN magazine during the North America leg of the tour.

After discussions with video and lighting designer Marchwinski, Halpin chose the Claypaky Scenius Profile together with the Scenius Unico as the key fixtures in the lighting rig for the eye-shaped LED screen. Halpin’s design calls for large amounts of the single fixture type, arranged in 43-meter spans across the upper lid of the eye-shaped video screen. “We needed a fixture with enough flexibility to act as a key light, wash light and beam effect light, all at once. The Scenius fixtures are wonderfully versatile and have enough punch to stand up to the LED screen behind,” Halpin states.

The original rider for Katty Perry’s Witness: The Tour called for 112 Clay Paky Scenius Unico and 16 Clay Paky Mythos fixtures. Lighting designer at Gearhouse Group, Robert Grobler proposed that these fixtures be replaced with 112 Martin by Harman Mac Vipers and 16 Robe Robin Pointes, in line with Gearhouse’s available inventory for the Johannesburg shows. “Katy Perry’s production team were satisfied with the response rider, and the lighting rig for the eye-shaped LED screen that is central to the show performed well with the replacement fixtures at the TicketPro Dome,” Grobler told ETECH.