Lighting Design for Energy Air 2023

Marking 20 years of Energy in Switzerland, Energy Air 2023 took place at Zurich’s Letzigrund stadium for the first time. A new stage design was created for the ninth edition and its audience of 50,000: large LED surfaces, a long catwalk with a circular B-stage and coloured inflatable tubes shaped the main stage and towers. The four-and-a-half-hour show brought together national and international acts and was also streamed live.

My task was to develop a cost-efficient, weatherproof lighting design that would work at stadium scale and support this new architecture. A central consideration was how to keep the inflatable elements visible after dark while revealing their volume rather than treating them as flat scenic surfaces.

The tubes were lit from ground level in several layers using Cameo Zenit 600 fixtures with different asymmetric lenses. The resulting gradients and shadows followed their curvature and gave the towers a stronger sense of depth. The effect lighting continued the same geometry: vertical trusses between the LED walls extended into angled lines across the stage roof. High-output IP65 fixtures allowed the lighting to hold its own alongside the dominant video surfaces and remain reliable in wet conditions.

Six remote follow systems positioned on the audience towers provided key light for the different performance positions across the main stage, catwalk and B-stage. Two further systems on the rear truss added controlled backlight. All eight positions used Robe RoboSpot systems with iForte LTX FS fixtures. Additional iSpiider fixtures on the towers could be used flexibly for audience lighting or supplementary key light.

Preprogramming and Lighting Operating were delivered together with my team. During the build, we worked on two Depence systems directly inside the stadium. A ten-minute Swisscom show segment combining AI-generated music and visuals with 60 performers required an additional operator and a further Depence system.

The final lighting design maintained a coherent relationship between the new stage architecture, the changing artist performances and the camera image. The inflatable elements remained a defining spatial presence after dark, connecting the main stage, towers and audience within one visual system.

Line-up:

• James Blunt
• Passenger
• The Kolors
• Álvaro Soler
• Soolking
• KAMRAD
• Henry Moodie
• LOI
• Ray Dalton
• Stress
• Bastian Baker
• EAZ
• Mimiks & LCone
• L Loko & Drini
• Pegasus
• Remo Forrer
• Badnaiy & Gigi in the Swisscom show segment
• Anastacia as an unannounced guest
• Baschi with a short guest appearance
• Moser & Schelker DJ Set