Canada – Internationally acclaimed French architect Roger Taillibert wasn’t thinking about colourful entertainment lighting when he was commissioned to design the main stadium for the 1976 Summer Olympics. But the towering edifice that he created provides an ideal backdrop for a lighting designer looking to unleash powerful emotions and imagery in colour. Gil Perron demonstrated that this year at the Montreal Pride Festival.
Colour always plays a key role in this iconic festival, but Perron wanted to take things a step further in 2026. “This year, I really wanted to play the colour theory at its most obvious,” he said. “Using the Pride flag colours exclusively in both lighting and video content our results are a little loud … but loud was the whole point!”
Perron created colourful panoramas throughout the festival site. At the Olympic Park Stadium, which backed the main stage, Taillibert’s architectural design allowed him to create long clean streaks of reds, greens and blues to complement the rich tapestry of hues on the stage itself.
“The building provided a perfect canvas for colour, all thanks to its great architecture,” said Perron. “Because the skin of the building has these enormous blades sticking out from the surface, it’s quasi-impossible to get spill over or colour washing. So, lighting the building has become a major part of the vibe at the festival. Obviously, with a building of this size, it takes a lot of instruments! In this case, I used 48 COLORado Panel Q40 fixtures per slot.”
The COLORado Panel Q40s were only some of the colour rendering Chauvet Professional fixtures in Perron’s LSM supplied rig. Also contributing to his brilliant festival palette were 42 Maverick Force3 Profile units on 16 truss cords with automated chain hoists, 24 Rogue BeamWash 1 fixtures in racks of four, ten Maverick Storm 2 Profiles at FOH on the stage and seven additional Q40 Panels for blinders, as well as 12 Maverick Force 1 Spots on the floor.
To spread his colour magic throughout the festival grounds, Perron also use 231 COLORado 1 Quade fixtures and 32 Ovation Rêve E-3 IP units for site and environmental lighting. “Given the statement we wanted to make, we needed a good amount of fixtures,” said Perron.
Pulling off this astounding study in colour didn’t only require a large number of fixtures, it also called for a concerted team effort. Perron was joined by a group of talented colleagues that included Ryan Germundson master electrician, Fahed Hammami systems and network guru, and Kevin Laflamme the TD who also handled the site lighting project.
All of the performers who visited this year’s Montreal Pride, relied on Perron and his festival team to handle lighting for their shows. Francis Guitard, who Perron describes as a “EDM Lighting Legend,” came out of early retirement to handle the main event.
“The guy made me cry he was so good,” said Peron, who described Guitard’s show as “epic” and, of course, brimming with beautiful colours.
