Five are among the most successful and iconic UK bands, topping charts across the globe and selling more than 20 million records worldwide. Back with their original lineup, the band’s Keep On Movin Australia and New Zealand 2026 Tour recently concluded with Chameleon Touring Systems supplying gear and crew for the East Coast of Australia.
The full production design is by the well-known UK Production, Set & Lighting Design Studio, Cassius Creative. The lighting director for the tour is Charlie Lapage-Norris of Chroma Creative.
From a young age, Charlie knew he wanted to work in live shows, so he studied lighting design at both college and university, drawn to its mix of creativity and technical precision.
“The two gel in my head quite well,” he commented. “After university, I worked in live events, corporate events and award shows and things for about six years. During COVID, I moved to a Project Management role for international Live and Hybrid Events.”
Having such wide-ranging experience gives Charlie the benefit of understanding all aspects of live production: technical, creative, and budgeting.
“Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of working for several designers and artists, designing and programming and figuring out where I best fit in this wide industry,” he said. “Cassius approached me and said, ‘ Would I come on board and program Five for them? ‘ And I said, ‘ Yeah, absolutely! So, we spent two weeks programming, in production and building the show.”
The brief from the beginning has always been that this is not a polished pop show, it’s more of an edgy rock show.
“The lighting and content work hand in hand to create this edginess, utilising big bold high contrast looks with a focus on unity, whilst also at times dropping right back and building both beautiful visual identities for the ballads and strong dynamic looks for the poppy numbers.
It was important to Cassius, the band, and management that the show they brought to Australia was their own and not compromised, not an easy task in some of the venues on the run.
The stage design, which focuses on height as a primary visual identity, features two large, angled screens that stagger down. At times, it displays intense content; it’s all meant to be very in-your-face and brash, with the ballads pulling it back in as needed to keep the show dynamic. CT Group supplied Roe VST 6 LED screens for this and Roe Carbon 3 Mk2 iMag LED.
The lighting comprises one big system of spots that starts at the very downstage and works all the way to the floor. The idea is that it often functions as a single system, with shapes and effects running across the entire canvas.
“Consequently, it’s important that we have consistency in terms of fixtures, and fixture choice has been a big part of my job of advancing over here,” said Charlie. “The spacing vertically and horizontally is all identical, whether it’s two fixtures on the floor, the distance between two trusses in the air, whatever. Visually, from an ideal front-of-house position where the camera might be, it all looks like one complete canvas. And in terms of programming, that’s very much how we often treat it”
The most important aspect for Charlie at any show is the key light, as ultimately, people are there to see the artist. The key light has two forms on this show: ten Robe iForte LTXs as the front light, utilising RoboSpot, and, on the floor, a line of 18 Robert Juliat Dalis 863 footlights.
“The combination of the iFortes and the Dalis allows us to create so much depth to both the performers and the stage as a whole,” remarked Charlie. “For the musician’s keylight we utilise four Martin MAC Aura XB Washes. It’s a classic, it does exactly what it says on the tin, and in terms of how it looks on camera, it’s exactly what we need.”
The next most important requirement is the big full system of spots, which, on the European run, Ayrton Rivales were chosen for their small size, reliability, speed and large lens.
“When we were bringing the show to Australia and New Zealand, we were given a few options, and the one fixture that I’ve been really impressed with on various shows worldwide has been the Martin MAC Viper XIP,” continued Charlie. “I spec that on a lot of shows now. I’ve spent years and years using the old MAC Viper and trusting that because it was an incredibly efficient optical unit. It was very trustworthy with its shutters, colours and positions. It would always hit exactly where it needed to, and it was smooth.
“What they did with the MAC Viper XIP was take that, make it quicker, make it brighter, make it cleaner, and it’s great. It’s fantastic. So, once I saw it was an option from Chameleon, it was a no-brainer.”
There are 42 MAC Viper XIP on trusses and floor, with a further 28 for the upstage wall.
Charlie notes that the other workhorse of the show is the GLP JDC-1, which he describes as a modern classic strobe with a hard hit of strobe when needed, and nice pixels and colour wash when required. A total of 33 are used on droppers and to frame the musicians on the floor.
The 18 Roxx Light B4 FC Blinder’s Charlie describes as super important to the show, saying, “This show often uses a sharp black and white colour theme and nailing those colour temperature and contrast levels with the right fixture specification is super important to us. At other times, the visual canvas is filled with big colourful looks. The Roxx cluster blinder is the best unit to fulfil both requirements. I don’t really care about the red shift or anything like that on this show, I don’t need to be creating old school moles, that’s not what we’re doing here.”
The show features a lot of haze and smoke courtesy of five DF50 hazers across the board, a Look Solutions Unique hazer at front of house and four Viper 2.6 foggers.
“It’s a pretty atmospheric-heavy show,” added Charlie. “The angled screens block access for atmosphere to enter the stage area over a lot of it. We can’t just have a simple hazer set upstage because it literally just won’t hit. Which is why we bolster this with foggers buried in the set.”
Charlie ran an MA Lighting grandMA3 light console, remarking that swapping between different fixture types, cloning and recreating existing elements of the show from the previous UK run on the reduced rig were a breeze.
“The phasers, they have some quirks, but I love them still,” he said. “The whole show is all recipes. Every single cue, every single bump, everything is all recipes. And it means that when we are jumping from fixture type to fixture type, from rig size to rig size, I can be hugely in control of that and very quickly change delay sweeps and complex timing utilising the selection grid.”
Photos: BCSimaging, DazCMedia
