Italian pop superstar and singer-songwriter Tiziano Ferro is playing a sold-out Italian stadium tour – Stadi 26 – with an eye-popping lighting design by Giovanni Pinna, including nearly 150 Robe moving lights and 3 x Robe RoboSpot remote follow systems, all being operated on the road by lighting director Marco Zucchinali.
The show is strongly video-based. Comix – the London-based multi-disciplinary studio founded by Harry Bird – created the playback video content, while the IMAG mix is directed by acclaimed Italian television and multi-camera director Cristian Biondani, known for his innovative work with MTV, RAI, and Eurovision. The overall creative director is Claudio Santucci from multidisciplinary design and architecture studio Giò Forma from Milan, also responsible for the set and stage design.
Giovanni worked very closely to craft the precise onstage visuality sought by the creative team, complete with a 60 meter wide by 12 meter high upstage LED screen containing central sliding door panels for entrances / exits, and a 20 meter thrust coming off the front of the stage, allowing the artist to get right out into the audience and play to all in the room!
“I needed the brightest and best quality light sources for this design,” explained Giovanni, “That’s why I chose 80 x iESPRITE LTLs, 40 x iFORTE Fresnels and 24 x iFORTE LTXs to be the backbone of the rig.”
The tour’s lighting equipment is being supplied by Agorà, and the automation by PRG.
The tour’s setlist comprises over 30 numbers and is a carefully constructed retrospective of Ferro’s colorful 25-year career as a music artist – covering his journey through R’n’B, pop and urban – with the development of his distinctive style and success as one of the biggest Italian recording artists of all time. In this same space, the artist has faced and overcome a series of personal battles.
With Ferro’s new album Sono un grande dropping at the end of 2025, this tour is part of a new, fresh, and positive forward-looking outlook.
The physical lighting design is straightforward, comprising 10 upstage trusses of 10 meters each, five of them automated, although they are primarily used in static positions, but this allows the over-stage architecture to be instantly transformed by moving these trusses into a variety of positions.
The 10 trusses are rigged in straight lines of five, one above another, with a 2-meter offset to one another, and the lower ones being automated.
Giovanni’s choice for lights on the moving trusses were iESPRITE LTLs – all 80 of these fixture types are deployed on these trusses – 8 per truss, spaced 1.25 meters apart – deliberately tight as Giovanni wanted to create a super-beamy dance event-like aesthetic.
Each truss also features 4 x iFORTE Fresnels.
It is the first time that Giovanni has used these luminaires on a touring rig, and he likes them so much that he also specified 32 x iFORTE Profiles and 4 x iFORTE LTXs for Vasco Rossi’s 2026 stadium tour, which ran simultaneously for the first month of the Tiziano tour operated by himself. He comments, “They are absolutely astonishing fixtures!”
The lighting look for Tiziano Ferro is simple, symmetrical and powerful.
“I love simplicity,” notes Giovanni, “and with fixtures as potent and flexible as iESPRITES and iFORTE Fresnels, I have all the scope I need to produce excellent dynamics and plenty of drama and style.”
He further elucidates how these ‘high and big’ lighting looks are a perfect complement to all the video action happening onscreen.
The tour’s overhead lighting concept is also harmonious with the floor lighting package that sees fixtures rigged in ballet-style side positions to highlight the band, dancers and performers and provide those precise, defined low level cross lighting looks.
The thrust extending from downstage centre features an 8 x 4 plexi-floor B Stage at the end, all illuminated from below.
The 24 x iFORTE LTXS are all deployed for front lighting, and they are the only front lighting apart from some additional follow spots.
They are rigged on 2 x FOH towers each 12 meters high, distanced 55 meters from the downstage edge of the stage. These long throws are “ideal for the reach and impact” of the iFORTE LTX, stated Giovanni, who also used the LTX version of the iFORTE for key lighting duties on the Vasco Rossi tour.
iFORTE LTXs are arranged in two rows on the FOH towers, rigged on a custom frame. They are counterbalanced with an array of PA delay on the other side, focused to cover the back of the grandstands.
The 3-way RoboSpot system controls two iFORTE LTXs that are exclusively dedicated to following the artists throughout the entire show, plus an additional one for all the guest artist pickups. The RoboSpot BaseStations are located at FOH behind the lighting console when the FOH area is central, or two stage left on the FOH Sound platform and one stage right on the FOH lighting position when it’s a dual FOH set up.
These lights and positions are completely mission-critical to the show, which is being enjoyed by Ferro’s diverse and enthusiastic fanbase, who are delighted to see their hero so clearly deliver a brilliant and authentic show.
Giovanni and Marco Zucchinali worked closely on all aspects of the show during pre-viz and rehearsals, and Giovanni has enjoyed collaborating so closely with video, with Comix for the playback and also on the camera mix, as well as working with Notch live FX on D3 ... and the cameras, all woven together in a coherent visual environment.
Giovanni also involved Marco “Made” De Nardi, a super experienced LD, to helped during the rehearsal period and first shows when he was unable to attend in person due to his commitments on the Vasco tour.
The positioning of the FOH towers also included collaboration with the audio department, “so there was A LOT of teamwork on this, but as always, this brings out the best in everyone and naturally great results for the artist!”
For the video elements to work most effectively in this live environment, the lighting has to be extremely specific and precise, “and this was our goal from the start with this design,” Giovanni explained.
The biggest creative challenge was undoubtedly the strong interaction between automation, screens and lighting, and in ensuring that all disciplines worked harmoniously. This took a serious amount of interdisciplinary thought and planning, all of which is paying off as the tour continues to impress fans and critics alike, with Stadi 26 shouted out loud and clear as one of Tiziano’s best to date!
Photos by Marco Zucchinali