Alex Soto Creates Big Looks for Reggaeton Star
When lighting designer and production manager Alex Soto talked to his team about creating a look for reggaeton star Ozuna’s homecoming concert at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan last fall, he set a clear directive “Let’s make it look big!”
Close to 18,000 fans attended the event (held on Sept. 15, shortly after Hurricane Irma swept past Puerto Rico on Sept. 6, and just days before the eyewall of Hurricane Maria made its devastating hit on the island on Sept. 20).
Soto wanted the stage to convey the indomitable spirit of his client, who lost his father at an early age, grew up in poverty and yet rose to become on of Latin music’s most prominent stars.
“Ozuna is amazing, in terms of the success he’s achieved and the upbeat attitude he’s always maintained,” said the Florida-based LD, who is also the lighting designer for Marc Anthony and other Latin stars. “His latest album and the supporting tour are called Odisea to reflect the odyssey that Ozuna has been on in his young life.”
Cubes within Truss
At the heart of Soto’s design is a massive 24-foot-high vertical truss structure, divided into evenly sized cubes, three high by seven wide. Ozuna’s band members performed from nine of the cubes. The remaining 12 cubes were covered with 5.9mm video panels that programmer Richard Vicens used to display a variety of background images from flowers to brick walls to reflect the many moods of the artist’s music.
A collection of Chauvet Professional Rogue RH1 fixtures accented the cubic structure with sharp beams and vivid colors. “Once we created this big cubic structure, we built the lighting rig around it,” said Soto. “I told my programmers, Andres Campos and José Diaz, that we had to select bold lights that would not be overshadowed by this structure, but would bring out its grandness. They did an excellent job helping to create a lightshow that matched the stage design.”
Soto and his team hung 32 Rogue RH1 Hybrid fixtures from the cubic structure itself and positioned an additional eight units on the stage apron. “We used the Rogues that were on the cubes to spot Ozuna and to add some depth to the stage by creating crossing patterns in front of the truss structure,” he said. “The Rogues that were on the stage were used for aerial effects.”
A collection of 20 COLORado Batten72 Tour units were positioned inside the cubes that housed the band members. “The COLORados were really important in highlighting the band,” continued Soto. “We were able to give props to each band member by lighting individual cubes in some nice color washes.”
More Cubes and Squares
To expand the visual impression made by the cubic scenic element, Soto mirrored it above the stage by suspending seven illuminated square truss structures from the roof. An additional square truss unit was positioned on each side of the stage.
“The square truss over the stage and to the side of it definitely extended the look we created and made it seem more powerful,” he said. “It made the stage and the area above it seem like one massive unit, yet we kept the audience’s focus on the stage itself by shooting light from the Rogues down on it.”
In addition to the Rogue fixtures, Soto used 24 Vari-Lite VL4000 Beam Washes, flown stage left and stage right for side lighting that bathed the whole stage in color. In addition, 52 Chauvet Professional Q-Wash 260 and 40 Q-Wash 560 fixtures were brought in to colorize the area around the video panels. He also hung 16 TourPro 1000 RGB Strobe/Washes from the cube structure for eye candy, positioned 16 COLORado 1-TRi IP fixtures around the truss for color and added 80 Elation Professional Platinum Beams for aerials and audience lighting. Other luminaires included Spiders, GLP Impression X4s and Vari-Lite 3015 Spots. All of the fixtures were supplied by Musique Xpress.
“This show was a great team effort,” said Soto. “A lot of people contributed to its success, including manager Vicente Saavedra, tour manager Angel Mejias, road manager Remiel Morales, stage manager Feliz Marquez and local production manager Willie Cortez, as well as promoters Raphy Pina and Vicente Saavedra.
“All told, we used over 340 fixtures in our rig, not counting fog machines, confetti cannons and video panels” he continued. “We wanted to put a lot of light on our structure and have a lot of lighting coming from it to make a bold statement about the artist, and emphasize to the audience that they were seeing a rising superstar.”
