Rock in Rio Lisbon 2024 was a monumental event, marking the festival’s first edition at the newly inaugurated Parque Tejo. The two-weekend extravaganza, held on June 15-16 and June 22-23, featured a stellar lineup with headliners like Ed Sheeran, Scorpions, Evanescence, Europe, Calum Scott, and Jonas Brothers. This year’s festival not only showcased outstanding musical performances but also set a new benchmark on the diversity of entertainment at a music festival.
The Evolution of Rock in Rio Lisbon’s Lighting Design
Rock in Rio has always been synonymous with grandeur, and the Lisbon edition is no exception. With the opening of Parque Tejo, which debuted during the World Youth Day in 2023, the festival needed a lighting design that could match the venue’s state-of-the-art infrastructure. Enter Woodroffe Bassett Design (WBD), one of the best-known and most prolific lighting design brands in the world of entertainment and architecture. 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, a renowned Portuguese lighting designer, acting as the bridge between WBD, Pixel Light, and the incoming LDs. Ramiro, a powerhouse in lighting design in Portugal, spearheaded the inclusion of Wysiwyg in the festival.
Wysiwyg: The Backbone of Lighting Design
Wysiwyg has been a standard for lighting design for many years. Known for its precise lighting calculations and ease of use, Wysiwyg was integral to the success of Rock in Rio Lisbon 2024. The software’s powerful CAD tools enabled Martins and his team to create detailed and accurate lighting plans, ensuring that each performance was perfectly lit.
“Using Wysiwyg was essential for us,” said Ramiro 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. This facility ensured that each band’s unique lighting requirements were met without any hitches.
“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.”
Precision and Creativity Combined
One of the standout features of Wysiwyg is its ability to combine precision with creativity. The software’s intuitive interface and powerful tools allowed Martins and his team to experiment with different lighting effects and sequences, pushing the boundaries of what was possible.
The meticulous planning and execution, supported by Wysiwyg, ensured that each performance was a visual masterpiece. The festival’s success demonstrated the importance of using advanced tools and technology to achieve excellence in lighting design.
“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 exceptional render quality. With Wysiwyg Perform, lighting designers can achieve stunningly realistic visualizations, ensuring that their creative vision is accurately represented. The software’s photometric values are among the most precise in the industry, providing an unparalleled level of detail and accuracy. This precision is particularly beneficial when networking consoles to Wysiwyg, as it guarantees that the lighting effects seen in the software will match the real-life performance. “The high render quality of Wysiwyg Perform allowed us to visualize 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.”
As the curtain falls on Rock in Rio Lisbon 2024, the success of the festival’s lighting design serves as a testament to the importance of innovation and technology in the entertainment industry.
“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.”