The Playground delivers a show as visually engaging as it is musically impactful.

Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer Tour" shined brighter thanks to The Playground Design Collective's innovative use of Elation's ARTISTE MONET profile luminaire. As the Grammy-winner's first headlining tour and The Playground's inaugural collaboration with her, the production dazzled audiences across North America and Europe, bringing her signature energy to life with visually striking stage designs.

The Playground handled design and creative direction as one of the year's hottest touring shows. The show featured production designers Sooner Routhier and Trevor Ahlstrand, and creative and show designer Curtis Adams. Dane Kick took on the lighting programmer and director role, while Jason Giaffo served as a lighting programmer. Fuse Technical Group was the lighting and video vendor for the tour.

The Playground team created a multi-level playground with performance spaces that perfectly matched Megan Thee Stallion's energetic style. Inspired by the organic shape language that embodied the themes of the show, The Playground designed a giant 30' circular LED video stage with an LED video floor as the primary performance space, three massive monolithic LED video towers, a double snake-head-shaped lighting rig, and a circular runway. These elements reached far into the audience to create an immersive concert experience, bringing Megan closer to her adoring fans.

Workhorse of the rig
The lighting design featured 92 Elation ARTISTE MONET profile moving heads, alongside six PROTEUS BRUTUS wash FX fixtures, creating a dynamic and immersive environment for Megan's powerful stage presence and accompanying dancers.

"The MONETs were the workhorse of the lighting rig," says lighting programmer and director Dane Kick. "Every gobo or beam you saw came from them. We placed them throughout the trussing, on the stage floor, and behind our upstage video wall for Megan's dramatic entrance at the top of the show. We also had six in our FOH truss that we're used to light the VIP riser during the show."

Production designer Trevor Ahlstrand adds, "The MONETs gave us everything we needed-they were not only key lights but effect lights too. With their fantastic color mixing and output, we could achieve fully saturated colors, from fiery reds to soft, dichroic hues, helping us tell the story of transformation that runs through the show."

Color story across three acts
The Playground crafted a show in three acts, each showcasing a unique aesthetic tied to Megan's journey of transformation: Act 1: "Snake" - her hard-hitting beginnings full of stark colors, powerful lighting, pyrotechnics, and a cast of silhouetted beauties. Act 2: "Butterfly" - Megan shedding her scales and transforming into her sensual self. Act 3: "Human" - Megan and her Hotties take the audience on a journey of metamorphosis from concert to full-out dance party.

The design team crafted a compelling color story, with the ARTISTE MONET instrumental in setting the tone for each act. Act 1 featured bold hues of red, fuchsia, orange, and amber, accented with touches of teal green. Act 2 shifted to softer shades of pink, light blue, and yellow, while Act 3 embraced natural skin tones enhanced by rich, saturated lighting.

"The color out of the MONET is great, having the ability to not only mix with CMY but RGB," said Ahlstrand, referring to the MONET's SpectraColor color mixing system. SpectraColor combines CMY with RGB and variable CTO to produce color combinations that have traditionally been hard for LED luminaires to achieve. "This feature also allows more output for fully saturated colors. In addition to the color and output, it has a good gobo selection, animation and shuttering. All of this makes it a great all-around fixture for all applications."

Highlight moments
Some of the show's highlight moments included a massive snake-like lighting sculpture that encapsulates Megan as she performs her emotional ballad "Cobra", and a giant dichroic chrysalis that reveals the performer from the top of Act 2.

The 92 MONETs were spread across the stage design, including in the iconic 'double snake head' lighting rig. "The MONETs really made it come to life," said creative and show designer Curtis Adams. "There is a particular focus where the MONETs are splayed out into the audience, making the rig look like a giant crown and immersing the spectators. It is definitely one of the epic looks of the show!"

Ahlstrand says there are several powerful moments but one that stands out is when all the fixtures are pointed straight down at 50/50 in solid red. "This felt incredible and fit the mood perfectly! Most fixtures wouldn't have the output to read in the room being in a fully saturated color, but the beams really popped."

From the fiery intensity of Act 1, where red beams sliced through the air, to the soft, ethereal glow of Act 2's butterfly-inspired visuals, the MONETs were an integral part of the tour's design. "One of the most memorable moments for me," adds Kick, "was zooming the MONETs out and pointing them directly into the audience. It's a simple yet effective way to accent hits in songs, and also produces a different look in the show. They have a pretty wide and narrow zoom, so it's super easy to go from a flood look to a beam look with these fixtures."

PROTEUS BRUTUS
Additional to the rig were PROTEUS BRUTUS fixtures placed in the FOH truss and used as dancer keylight. The BRUTUS, a 75,000-lumen wash FX light with a complement of features (gobos, animation, iris, frost), houses a 4.5° to 45° zoom that allows them to wash wide for full coverage or narrow tight to cut through other layers of light. CMY color mixing with variable CTO allows them to hone in on a particular shade when needed.

A dynamic performer requires a dynamic production and The Playground Design Collective delivered a show that was as visually engaging as it was musically impactful. Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer Tour" ran from May to September.

Production Team
Production Manager: Joseph Lloyd
Production Designers: Sooner Routhier, Trevor Ahlstrand
Creative & Show Director: Curtis Adams
Lighting Programmer, Assoc. Lighting Designer, Lighting Director: Dane Kick
Lighting Programmer: Jason Giaffo
Video Programmer: Jose Santana
Content Producer: Anders Rahm
Creative Producer: Allison Ciccarelli
Creative Manager: Niccolo Cascino
Creative Assistant: Dulce Martin
Production Design & Direction: Playground
Lighting & Video: Fuse Technical Group
Content: Raw Cereal
Special Effects: Strictly FX
Scenic & Staging: TAIT, ShowFX

Photos: Luke Dyson