Carlos Vives, icon of Colombian music, celebrated his legacy with El Tour de los 30, starting at the iconic Radio City Music Hall. The tour was highlighted by the use of advanced technology such as Zactrack to track the artists on stage and MA Lighting consoles for precise lighting control, with the support of Wholestage. With more than 100 people on its team, the production achieved a unique visual and sound experience for Vives’ fans.
Carlos Vives, born on August 7, 1961 in Santa Marta, Colombia, has dedicated his life to exalting the traditional music of his country, fusing genres such as vallenato and cumbia with modern influences of pop and rock.
His unique style has led him to become one of the most influential artists in Latin music, and three decades into his career, Vives celebrated his legacy with El Tour de los 30, a show that toured the United States, starting at the legendary Radio City Music Hall, marking the beginning of a journey full of emotion, nostalgia and music.
The team behind the magic.
The success of such an ambitious tour is built with a solid and visionary team. Wilson Mora, Production Manager, and William Gallo, Lighting Designer, brought together creativity and technology to design an unforgettable show.
The tour had a technical and artistic team made up of approximately 100 to 120 people, and each of them was key to ensuring that each show was an unforgettable experience for the public.
During the Tour de los 30, the team relied on advanced technology from zactrack and MA Lighting to ensure precise and uniform lighting, essential for both the live experience and for recording on cameras and CCTV.
Wilson Mora comments that they used the zactrack SMART system with 8 anchors and 5 trackers on the US tour, while for the show at the El Campín Stadium in Bogotá, they complemented it with a second identical system, doubling the capacity to adapt to the needs of a larger-scale show.
To ensure precise and reliable control at each presentation of El Tour de los 30, the team used a robust MA Lighting console system. “We worked with two full-size GrandMA3s for lighting, one GrandMA3 light for preview and programming, and another GrandMA3 light dedicated to video control,” explains Wilson.
“We opted for Zactrack because of the ease of assembly, the user-friendly interface and, above all, the stability of the system. Its native integration with MA allows tracking to become a native attribute of any luminaire, which gave us a significant advantage in achieving dynamic and precise lighting,” says Mora.
During this long-awaited tour, the Zactrack system was mainly used to control the followpots and highlight key moments such as backlights and guitar and accordion solos. “We obtained a more than satisfactory result, because we managed to fulfill the ideas we had during the design phases.”
However, working with Zactrack was not without its challenges, and Wilson remembers it accurately: “One of the most important was calibrating the system with a lot of ambient light, since in the stadiums there were other teams working simultaneously and it was difficult to have total darkness in the place. Fortunately, Zactrack is prepared for this type of situation and we were able to do a precise calibration. And another of the challenges was presented by the catwalk, so we had to expand the coverage of the system. We were able to solve this by adding more anchors to our setup.”
Despite these difficulties, the team was able to resolve them with precise adjustments and technical planning, ensuring a flawless show.
The setup and programming did present several technical challenges, especially due to the complexity of the lighting and video systems used. According to Wilson “It was quite a challenging show in terms of setup because we were using on average 90 universes distributed between conventional fixtures, followpots, LED bars and strobes per Pixel.”
To handle this technical load, the team turned to a robust system of MA Lighting products. This included two full-size GrandMA3 consoles, one as main and one as backup, a GrandMA3 light for preview, another GrandMA3 light for video and a full-size GrandMA2 for the opening acts.
In addition, 10 GrandMA PU L and M processor units were employed to ensure efficient and precise control of the entire infrastructure.
William Gallo, with nearly 15 years of experience as a Lighting Designer, began his career in the industry while studying film and television. His first encounter with the profession was at SONAR, he discovered his passion for lighting.
Since then, he has worked with artists such as Carlos Vives and Santiago Cruz, as well as collaborating in major festivals such as the FEP. And for El Tour de los 30, he led the design from his company, KINETICA.
He has been working with Carlos Vives as a Lighting Designer for approximately three years and on this tour, he was in charge of the design, programming and execution of the show.
According to William, who was in charge of the design, programming and direction of the show, “we based our design on the sacred geometry of the peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, working on a scenographic design that starts with geometric shapes, beginning with a large rhombus in the flown rig.”
The lighting design was conceived as a tribute to Carlos Vives’ 30-year musical career. “The main objective was to have a generously sized screen so that the public could appreciate all the audiovisual content that had been prepared and it was the result of a collaborative effort between all areas of the project.”
Each department worked independently under the same brief provided by Carlos Vives, and then the different disciplines were integrated to achieve visual and artistic cohesion on stage: “The design of the show took a total of 6 months. During this time, we worked intensively on visualizations for 5 months, and then we had 2 weeks of rehearsal in Bogotá before the show began the tour.”
Gallo shared that one of the biggest challenges in the lighting of the tour was “the size of the stage, adjusting it to the different venues and ending with a grand finale at the El Campín Stadium, being on tour and programming simultaneously. It was quite a challenge, we had more than 300 lights, lasers, drones, wristbands for the public, and everything was synchronized by timecode. The most important thing was to minimize the margin of error as much as possible, so we had to use many redundant systems. In the end, I feel that it was a challenge overcome and the result exceeded our expectations.”
In total, 390 fixtures and a total of 27,000 parameters distributed across 55 universes were controlled. As for the fixtures used, the show featured equipment from various brands, including Megapointe, Spiider, Robe’s Iforte, Ayrton’s Cobra, and CHAUVET Professional’s Color Strike M.
William Gallo, who has been using MA consoles for around 10 years, has had a very positive experience with these products. From his start with the onPC command wing 2 to the full-size grandMA3, he highlights the versatility of the console for cloning multi-instance fixtures, the speed of the software for last-minute programming, and the wide variety of libraries available in Fixture Share. “What I like most about MA consoles is the parameter management; not being limited to a specific number of universes makes it very easy to adapt to different venues with varied rigs,” He acknowledges.
He also highlights the software’s power, the ease of connecting it to visualizers, and the availability of MA products in almost all the countries in which he tours, which contributes to his confidence in the brand.
For him, MA is “the best brand” because it offers complete tools for any type of show, and he would use MA consoles and the zactrack system again in future projects. “Of course, basically because we already have the experience and it was satisfactory,” he said.
The decision to use zactrack in the show arose from several needs related to the artist’s requirements. The main one was to ensure proper lighting for the cameras, especially to create a backlight that would separate Carlos Vives from the background of the stage. “In that search we came across several tracking systems, but definitely the best solution was zactrack, for its portability, powerful software on a tablet and compatibility with protocols such as sACN and Artnet.”
It was used specifically to track and control the followspot of Carlos Vives and three musicians during their “solos” in the show. Gallo highlighted a moment when, for example, during the accordion solo, the musician moved freely and zactrack made a complete bridge of lights follow him.
“We used between 8 and 12 antennas distributed between the floor and the rig, located according to the venue we were in,” describes William. “The antennas were strategically distributed to track the artists, with five groups of actors assigned to different trackers. Carlos Vives had 3 trackers, accordion 2 trackers, guitar 1 tracker, bagpipe 1 puck, piano 1 puck.”
The lights used with zactrack were located on the front bridge and the bridge of the against, as well as at FOH, where moving heads were placed to act as followspots. “It’s important for us to track them for several reasons, including having a light with”
In terms of programming, Gallo highlights that “the entire show is programmed by timecode,” and that each song has between 50 and 120 cues, with zactrack interacting several times during the show to make entrances and exits of the actors and adjust the lights for each musician’s solos. What William likes most about the zactrack system is the “ease of programming and the native integration with the MA console, which allows you to create presets as if they were parameters of the luminaires, and above all how fast it is to configure it.”
He is certainly sure that one of the most outstanding features of this tracking tool is its stability in tracking and the simplicity of the system, because “having all the software on a tablet is incredible because we do not depend on huge servers, multiple screens or special computers, it is simply opening an app and that’s it.”
However, the beginning meant a real challenge for the LD: “The first contact with the system was a shock, we received it the same day the tour began and there was a lot of fear that it would not work as we thought. However, and despite not having received prior training, the system turned out to be surprisingly easy to configure.”
As for the integration with the MA Lighting console, it was done through the sACN and zacnet protocols. “We had the libraries with the zactrack parameter in the console and we had everything programmed as position presets that we then recorded in the cuelist of each song, and zactrack worked directly with the console without the need for other plugins, making the integration even more efficient.”
The close relationship with Wholestage, forged in previous projects such as the remodeling of the CUMBIA HOUSE in Bogotá, was key to the technical success of El Tour de los 30. “Thanks to this great relationship, we were able to team up again on this tour,” reflects Wilson Mora.
William Gallo was introduced to the zactrack system after having seen references online. “I knew it because I had seen it on the internet, but it was thanks to Wholestage that we were able to approach the team. We used the Smart system because it is the most suitable for the size of stages we have on tours and festivals. And I programmed it myself for the entire tour.”
The relationship between the production team and Wholestage goes beyond the professional, described by Wilson Mora as a “brotherhood relationship.”
Wholestage’s closeness and continuous support have been fundamental for the projects to flow smoothly. “The great technical support we have received in different cities and countries such as Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, Mexico and Bogotá has been key to the success of the tour,” says the Production Manager.
The support and training provided by Wholestage were evaluated with a “10 out of 10,” since, according to Mora, “they have always been willing to help us with everything necessary.” This willingness and constant availability, “within reach of a phone call,” gave them peace of mind and confidence throughout the tour.
Both heads of the production team for this tour evaluated Wholestage very positively: “The impact of this distributor has been very great because they have brought Latin America closer to top-of-the-line technologies in the entertainment industry.”
He also highlighted the importance of the community that the company has managed to create among producers, lighting designers (LDs) and technicians. “This makes the work of touring easier because in a large percentage of countries we have the requested equipment and trained personnel,” Mora adds.
For his part, William, the LD, shares a very positive experience with Wholestage: “The technical support we received on each date of the tour is incredible, from remote support to bringing technicians to certain cities where it was important to have additional support. Without a doubt, the willingness they have to clear up our doubts is impressive. I was in contact with Johnatan del Villar, Luis Duque, Moisés Aguilar, Alex and Juan, and their work was impeccable.”
His perception of Wholestage in the market was equally positive: “I feel that they do something that was missing in LatAm, and that is democratizing knowledge and providing personalized support, which is very appreciated by us.”
The conclusion for this duo responsible for such a significant tour is unanimous: “Of course we would use MA and zactrack again, basically because we already have the experience and it was satisfactory.”
The combination of musical talent, technical innovation and connection with the public made it clear why Carlos Vives remains a benchmark in Latin music.
With a highly experienced production team, led by a creative Lighting Designer like William Gallo and a Production Manager as specialized and meticulous as Wilson Mora, the tour was carried out with a technical level of excellence.
The use of innovative technologies such as zactrack and MA Lighting elevated the visual experience and this success was possible thanks to the continued support of Wholestage, who not only provided these systems, but also provided excellent technical and after-sales support, ensuring that every detail was executed without a hitch.
The closing of the Tour de los 30 in the city of Los Angeles not only marked the end of a tour, but a new chapter in the history of an artist who, after three decades, continues to inspire with his music, passion and his ability to reinvent himself and gave himself a tour where the public lived an unforgettable experience, uniting generations to the rhythm of Colombian music.
