France – Words like “atmosphere” and “ambience” come up often when fans recount their experience at one of Gims’ June performances at Decathlon Arena Stade Pierre-Mauroy. Anyone who saw the concerts, or one of the many videos posted online about them, finds it easy to understand why. The multi-platinum Congolese-French rapper didn’t simply appear on stage. Instead, he flourished in an immersive 3D environment marked by light, movement, energy, and emotion that embraced the entire giant arena.
Maxime Tisseuil of SCENYNC would not have had it any other way! From the moment he began thinking about this production, the acclaimed designer focused his attention beyond traditional concert lighting. “When I started designing the show for the Lille stadium, my main goal was to create a visual experience that matched Gims’ energy and stage presence,” he recalled. “I didn’t want the lighting simply to illuminate the artist—I wanted it to become an integral part of the performance.
I envisioned a huge pixel-mapped luminous ceiling that could become a true scenic element, constantly transforming throughout the show,” continued Tisseuil.
“Around this structure, I focused on creating depth, volume, and immersion, turning the stadium into a living environment. My vision was to have the lighting feel musical and follow the emotions of the performance. I spent a lot of time programming around melodic phrases, rhythms, and vocals so that the lighting naturally enhanced the music.”
The fruits of Tisseuil’s vision were beautifully evident right from the start of the show with the opening song Sapé comme jamais. That’s when everything came to life, as lighting, video content and special effects joined to turn not just the stage, but the entire arena into a living breathing 3D entity focused on Gims and his music. Throughout the show, this environment evolved – light angles changed, altering the apparent shape and size of the stage, which itself adopted different color personalities as bold monochromatic washes and intense whites came and went. At other times, darkness dominated, combined on occasion with small dots of white light, turning the arena into a tiny piece of the cosmos.
Helping Tisseuil create this compelling panorama were 122 CHAUVET Professional Color STRIKE M motorized strobe-washes. Arranged across the stage deck, the versatile projectors provided the designer with a vast array of creative possibilities.
“Their RGB technology combined with pixel strobe effects allowed us to build a highly dynamic visual environment, capable of producing both large washes of color and intricate graphic effects,” said Tisseuil. “The Color STRIKE M is one of my favorite fixtures because of its power and because it can contribute in many different ways. Beyond its impressive output, it offers pixel-by-pixel control of both the RGB face and the strike beam. This allowed us to create highly graphic effects across the lighting ceiling in this show, while also maintaining great creative flexibility.”
The Color STRIKE M, along with the rest of Tisseuil’s rig, worked seamlessly with the massive video wall that ran across the entire width of the stage. Images on the screen changed throughout the performance, showing Gims sometimes, and mood compositions at others, lighting always flowing in sync with the displays.
“I also placed great importance on the consistency between lighting, video, special effects, and scenic design,” said Tisseuil. “On this production, video content also played major role, and the challenge was to support it without ever overpowering it. The idea was to let the media breathe while reinforcing it whenever necessary. I created powerful looks for the most energetic songs, while simplifying the visual language during quieter moments to give more space to both the artist and the video content.”
Following this vision helped Tisseuil fulfill what he regards as the main mission of a design: to serve both the artist and the music… in so doing, he creates a world inside the arena where both flourished.
