Lightswitch joined Eddie Izzard’s latest tour to provide a curated lighting design that would support the theatrical elements of his shows in venues big and small.
Lightswitch joined Eddie Izzard’s latest tour to provide a curated lighting design that would support the theatrical elements of his shows in venues big and small.
Eddie Izzard followed up his incredibly successful tour Force Majeure with The Wunderbar Tour, showcasing the greatest moments of Eddie Izzard magic for his most diehard fans. Eddie Izzard has been delighting audiences with his spectacular stand-up comedy and off-the-cuff routines for decades. We joined Eddie’s latest tour to provide a curated lighting design that would support the theatrical elements of his show in venues big and small, while also keeping the lighting infrastructure light and compact enough for easy touring.
Unlike past tours we’ve worked on with Eddie, the size constriction for this tour was considerable. Our lighting for all previous Eddie Izzard tours, including Force Majeure was loaded into a semi-truck — for Wunderbar, it all needed to fit into a small trailer being pulled behind the tour bus, a transportation area about one-eighth the previous size. In order to meet the size requirement without losing the dynamic power of our previous lighting work, we extensively researched various options to secure lighting that would be lightweight, physically small, and within budget while still packing a huge visual punch. We also had to contend with a widely varying venue size. Scheduled stops included small clubs for 400 people as well as large auditoriums in front of thousands. We needed a design that would not appear oversized in small clubs, but also still be able to fill large spaces. Our solution used a mixture of static and moving lights, as well as unconventional workarounds like utilizing a cyc light pointed at the audience, to maximize our lighting impact. The final design was mounted to a self-standing rig that could easily be set up by one tech within three hours, offering a creative and practical solution that met the performance needs of our client.
Eddie Izzard and his team were very pleased with the ingenuity of our design, especially its ability to use a small storage footprint to produce an enormous-looking and dynamic show. We worked within the tour’s tight budget to find modestly priced options that would offer a myriad of unique looks, supporting the diverse acts and antics of Eddie Izzard. Over our years on tour with Eddie, we’ve developed a close relationship with the incredible performing artist, and we are always honored to be a part of the magic Eddie Izzard creates for his audiences.
