Hannover born Lena, who shot to fame in 2010 after winning the Eurovision Song Contest for Germany with the song Satellite, has been on tour across Germany in promotion of her new album “Good News”.
Also along for the ride is lighting designer Jerry Appelt, who has designed for an extensive number of events and concerts around the world and was also the lighting designer for this years massive Eurovision Song Contest 2011 in Dusseldorf. Jerry Appelt realized from the beginning that the show needed a lighting concept that had a lot of video and fast-moving content to meet the expectations of a predominantly young audience. “The MTV Generation is familiar with this look and they want to see a lot of media content,” commented Jerry, based on experience.
Lots of movement on the set.
But blowing the audiences mind with a series of pictures was not sufficient for Jerry. “What we wanted was something special — a versatile scenography that provided an individual framework for each of the new songs on the latest album.” He decided to break from using simple lines by introducing seven crossbars, known affectionately by the crew as the “donuts”. Each one of these finely-wrought circular rings was assembled with eight impression 120 RZ fixtures – “The perfect lamp for this construction purpose”, according to Jerry. “The impressions became first choice because the fixtures have no base; as we wanted to have something both lightweight and dynamic, so a conventional moving light with base was out of the question.”
“Furthermore I wanted to use a flexible and dynamic lamp that was able to implement fast beam movement as well as slow, gentle fades. We always fitted the look to Lena’s songs, which range from Jazz and Blues to modern Pop. Therefore, there was a big demand for a wide color palette, ranging from soft pastel shades to glaring, strong colors. Once again Jerry knew he had the right lamp to accomplish this. “You can achieve wonderful effects with the impressions,” he added.
Floor lights for background
Complimenting the stage set design, Jerry added a further 15 impression 90 fixtures. These were used mainly in the stage background as floor lights, allowing their awesome colors to create a perfect backdrop for this impressive artiste.
