Global superstar Jason Derulo returned to Australia and New Zealand in September 2026 with ‘The Last Dance World Tour’.
With over 250 million singles sold worldwide, tens of billions of streams, and a catalogue packed with era-defining hits, Jason Derulo has become one of modern pop’s biggest and most recognisable names. Renowned for his high-energy live shows, chart-dominating anthems and unmatched crossover appeal, Derulo continues to captivate audiences across music, culture and digital platforms.
The concert leaned heavily on visual effects: moving lighting banks and screens, smoke guns, flame cannons, and not just confetti, but streamer guns too. Plus, numerous costume changes.
Jeremy Strong is the creative director and leads all creative elements throughout the show, from video content to choreography to outfits to special effects. Lighting designer, Tess Minor, works closely with Jeremy to deliver a lighting show that perfectly highlights Jason, the dancers and all the action happening onstage.
“The choreography is such a major element of the show, and it is so detail-oriented that the lighting for it becomes incredibly important,” explained Tess. “Putting in multiple ways to light them was an idea that was always developing over time as the choreography is always evolving and expanding.”
Specifically for the Australia and China run, Tess added two levels of side lighting, foot lighting, and more ways to backlight Jason and the dancers when they were on top of the risers.
“What I wanted to achieve with that was having more options to light everyone on stage and add dimension to how they were lit,” she said. “Instead of only lighting them from the front and always having that one-dimensional look, the multiple angles were to give more opportunities for dynamic looks.
“One of the main elements of the brief was dramatic lighting that accents and heightens the music. There is a lot of musical accents throughout each song, and Jeremy and I were always looking for lights that accentuate them. It is a busy show for every creative element, with a packed setlist and non-stop moments meant to keep the audience on their toes the entire time.”
Tess commented that one of the biggest challenges for this run was having a rig made up of different fixture types almost every show.
“Otis Benjamin, our lighting director on tour, did a great job of making each rig work and dealing with the challenges of all the various fixtures,” she added. “They can all be so different from each other in terms of brightness and colour mixing, which felt like the biggest challenge when advancing these shows.”
“On this run specifically, managing the rig has been a big factor,” agreed Otis. “Over the China, Aus & NZ leg there’s been five rigs to deal with, at a big scale that’s a lot of time behind the console with a show designed with lots of fixtures!”
The main rig is five lifts and the header screen, whereas in Australia it was one main lift and the header. Wherever the header is, it dictates what the lights do, where they point, and what drives the show.
The core of the lighting rig is 41 ACME Tornados, which, according to Otis, do most of the heavy lifting. Added to that were 102 Chauvet Strike M, 46 Martin MAC Viper XIP, 32 Claypaky Mythos II and 32 MAC Aura PXL. The 50 Robe Mega Pointe were joined by five Robe 1Forte LTX FS.
“Fundamentally, it’s about making sure Jason and all the dancers/choreography are well lit,” added Otis. “We have 5 iForte follow spots, which helps, along with a lot of dedicated key light. The classic ‘spot, wash, strobe’.”
Four MDG theONE supplied atmosphere.
Control was two MA Lighting grandMA3 full-size consoles, one as backup, with five MA PU Medium. Tess comments that the programming was quite detailed and extensive. Because the fixture types varied and the rig changed daily, organisation was key when Otis had to reset the showfile each day to match the current rig.
“A lot of work went into prepping the showfile and the recipes used throughout,” added Tess. “On top of that, I added in more hits and accents throughout the songs to create big impactful looks.”
This is the second time Tess has worked with Chameleon on a gig – the first being in 2023 with 5 Seconds of Summer.
“My first experience with them was so wonderful,” she remarked. “The crew were lovely and great to work with. The rig was the best of the whole run. When Chameleon came up as an option for the Jason Derulo run, there was no hesitation in working with Chameleon again.”
The schedule was tight, especially with the amount of action that had to happen on stage, but Chameleon Touring Systems nailed all shows.
“The Chameleon crew were fab!” commented Otis Benjamin, Derulo’s lighting director on the tour. “They’re a wonderful team, and I hope to work together again.”
