Shining Light On Bring Me The Horizon

James Scott and Louis Oliver from Okulus, the production and lighting designer for Bring Me The Horizon’s UK tour, shared some insights into the elaborate lighting setup the band had requested.

Courtesy PRG UK – Bring Me The Horizon

“The initial brief given to us by the band was that they wanted a big rock show, something that made a huge statement and filled as much of the arena space as possible,” Scott told Pollstar. “One word which kept being thrown around was ‘panoramic’ – we designed a narrow, ultra-widescreen format LED wall, but were careful to make sure it could fit into the different-sized venues BMTH were playing, sometimes with just millimetres to spare.” 

He added that “being able to fold the screen in on itself was where the design for a wrap-around LED wall originated from. Although the playback surfaces were designed by myself and Louis, we worked with many different visual creatives to assemble the video content.”

According to Oliver, the band presented ideas that Okulus then implemented, waiting for feedback.

“Towards the final stages of pre-production, the guys really sunk their teeth into the ins and outs of everything – production rehearsals [at Production Park] were very intense, with lots of changes, updates and additions, but we got there in the end,” Oliver said. The final setup saw more than 180 lighting fixtures hanging from numerous trusses.

Adam Power from lighting supplier PRG XL, who operated the lights during the show, said “we even put five lights each side of the stage in unallocated seating to stretch the design even wider. The band were passionate about having an intense show with lots of strobing and really big looks.”

The lighting rig consisted of Clay Paky Sharpy wash and Mythos moving lights, as well as Martin Mac Viper profile and performance lighting fixtures. Scott and Oliver also included an array of Ayrton Magic dot LED lights and a large number of Martin Atomic 3000 LED strobes.

“By selecting the LED version we got the best of both worlds and were able to choose between the LED and xenon operating modes; treating it as a traditional decay atomic or as a sharp and precise LED unit,” Scott explained.

All the lighting cues had been pre-programmed and run off a time code on a track-by-track basis.

“Most songs have at least a dozen cues in them, which would be virtually impossible to do manually. I trigger the time code at the start of every song, but have a couple of key lights I operate manually to follow members of the band around,” said Power, who operated the show from a GrandMA 2console. “The show ran on 15 universes of DMX, controlling the video content and lasers as well as the lighting from the MA2.”

Bring Me The Horizon is currently gearing up for tour dates in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Oliver told Pollstar that the Australia shows will feature “the old design with Mi-Strip [LEDs], and the USA will be a reduced version of the UK tour.”