Lighting designer Leo Herrmann built fully a symmetrical lighting architecture from 128 WildBar 16 and 64 impression X5 Compact fixtures across four identical trusses.
For the five performances of the rock musical HERILO: Das Rad dreht sich weiter, staged at the Energie Schwaben Arena in Kaufbeuren from 28 June to 5 July 2026, lighting designer Leo Herrmann of Lumenlabor created a stage space 32 metres wide. Using a symmetrical lighting architecture built from 128 GLP WildBar 16 and 64 GLP impression X5 Compact fixtures, he concentrated the light on an exceptionally broad playing area.
“I didn’t want simply to light the arena. I wanted to redefine the stage space,” says Leo Herrmann, lighting designer, Lumenlabor.
HERILO is a musical developed specifically for Kaufbeuren, connecting the town’s history, present and future. At its centre stands the legendary figure of Herilo, bound up in local tradition with Kaufbeuren and with the district known today as Hirschzell. Medieval scenes meet contemporary settings, set to a specially composed score.
The project was initiated and developed by Katharina and Wolfgang Wiedemann, then realised by a professional creative team alongside around 100 people working on and behind the stage. For the performances, the Energie Schwaben Arena was converted into a temporary musical theatre complete with a live band, orchestra, large-format LED video and a 32-metre stage. Lighting and rigging equipment for the production was supplied by Kaiser Showtechnik of Augsburg.
Leo Herrmann took on the lighting design for the first time this year. Not having worked on the production previously, he was able to approach the task without any obligation to the existing concept. His starting point was not the selection of individual fixtures, but the venue itself.
“For me, good lighting design always begins with the room, not with the fixtures,” says Herrmann. “I didn’t want to inherit an existing concept. I wanted to start by analysing what the arena actually makes possible.”
On his first site visit, he recognised that the previous stage layout did not make full use of the hall’s spatial potential, so he opted for a fundamental change. The entire production was rotated 90 degrees and reoriented along the long side of the arena.
The new orientation created a stage space 32 metres wide. The arrangement improved sightlines and audience capacity. Plus, it gave Herrmann the opportunity to work with the full width and depth of the playing area. His lighting design deliberately concentrated on the stage and its newly created geometry, from which he developed a fully symmetrical lighting architecture across four identically built trusses. Rather than programming the individual positions as separate units, he treated the entire structure as a single coherent instrument.
This allowed light to be precisely directed across the full width of the stage while still being conceived spatially. Performers, stage architecture, music and video were all treated as components of one shared overall picture.
“The rotation was ultimately the foundation for the entire lighting concept,” says Herrmann. “It created new perspectives, improved the sightlines and gave us considerably more creative freedom.”
For the symmetrical lighting architecture, Herrmann deployed 128 GLP WildBar 16 and 64 impression X5 Compact fixtures. Both fixtures handled scenic lighting and dynamic effect cues alike, allowing him to shape the theatrical passages of the musical as readily as the driving, often heavily guitar-led musical moments.
He used the linear form of the WildBar 16 to emphasise the width of the stage, to create clear graphic structures and to make the spatial depth of each scene visible.
“The WildBar 16 was the perfect tool for me to render architecture and depth on the stage,” says Herrmann. “The clean lines guide the audience’s eye and support the impact of a playing area some 32 metres across.”
The impression X5 Compact fixtures extended that graphic structure with flexibly shapeable light for a range of scenes and moods. Herrmann had originally specified the larger impression X5, but their weight ruled them out within the planned structure. The X5 Compact offered a more compact alternative without requiring him to compromise on colour matching within the GLP portfolio.
“It was important to me that the fixtures came from the same manufacturer, above all because of the colours,” says Herrmann. “It meant the WildBar 16 and the X5 Compact combined very well with one another. We had musical scenes with beautiful, theatrical light, over which I ran rock’n’roll cues. For that, I could use both the X5 Compact and the WildBar 16 equally, for illumination and as effect lighting.”
The relationship between lighting and video was shaped by a decision Herrmann made early on. The previous year’s staging had placed a large-format LED wall behind the orchestra, an approach he chose not to repeat.
“I deliberately decided against that solution for this year’s production,” says Herrmann. “It mattered to me not to create silhouettes of instruments, backline or the musicians themselves in front of the video surface. Instead, the whole of the visual attention should be concentrated on the central playing area.”
The lighting was not intended to dominate the content of the LED surface either. Instead, it carried the colours, forms and moods of the digital image onwards into the stage space so that video content and lighting design flowed visually into one another.
“For me, light and video belong inseparably together,” says Herrmann. “The light should extend the content of the LED wall into the stage space. If the audience takes in the overall picture and doesn’t stop to think about where light ends and video begins, then I've achieved my aim.”
