Inside Donny Montell’s 2024 one-show spectacle: Cameo lighting, one epic night

Every pop star dreams of delivering an unforgettable live show, but Donny Montell takes that ambition to a whole new level. The Lithuanian pop icon has carved out a unique space in the live music world with a bold concept: one massive concert per year, no repeats, no compromises. Following 2057 in 2022 and the futuristic 360 in 2023, Montell returned to Kaunas’ Žalgiris Arena in 2024 to raise the bar once again. With over 10,000 fans filling the arena, Montell delivered a sensory feast powered by the creative forces at Baltic Production Service and Marfa Lights. The latter lit up the stage with a dazzling arsenal of 350 Cameo fixtures, transforming the venue into an immersive world where pop, performance, and production collided, as Headliner discovers…

Marfa Lights and Baltic Production Service created a multi-level stage design that combined huge LED surfaces, sophisticated visuals and a diverse lighting set-up to create depth on multiple stage levels.

“We arranged the visual elements on the stage in several layers to create an immersive environment,” explains Andrius Stasiulis from Marfa Lights. 

“A large LED screen in the background, the musicians in front of it, then a transparent LED screen, Donny Montell and the dancers in front of it and, as the foremost level, the interplay between the lighting design and the audience.”

Marfa Lights positioned the fixtures at strategic points to emphasise the depth of the stage design and make the visual impact as strong as possible. 

The team arranged a total of 90 Cameo PIXBAR SMD IP G2 SMD LED bars into two 40-metre-long, continuous horizontal light lines across the entire width of the stage to give it even more structure and depth, with chase and pixel mapping effects synchronised with the video content.

“The PIXBARs were one of the central visual components of the show and more than impressed us with their combination of technical precision and creative possibilities,” enthuses Stasiulis.

Another eye-catching element was the OPUS H5 beam spot wash hybrid moving heads. These were arranged on both sides of the stage in a large grid formation and framed the set with balanced lighting accents, dynamic beam movements and sharp transitions between individual lighting moods.

The OTOS B5 beam moving heads acted as a kind of “bridge” between the stage and the audience. With their enormous light output and flexible beam angles, the OTOS B5s filled the Žalgiris Arena with powerful beams and also ensured that even darker colour palettes were clearly visible from all spectator areas. 

The Cameo moving lights in the lighting design by Marfa Lights are rounded off by eight OPUS X PROFILEs, which were used as powerful and precise side lights to emphasise individual performers or objects on stage in isolation.

However, the ZENIT W600 and W300 LED wash lights, which were arranged in a box-shaped structure above the stage, made the biggest contribution to the visibility and illumination of the stage.

“In combination with the ultra-wide LED screen, the ZENIT W600 and ZENIT W300 transformed the entire set into a three-dimensional experience,” concludes Stasiulis. “It felt like the stage extended into the audience and merged seamlessly with the hall.” 

To set the scene for the central catwalk, Marfa Lights also placed 24 ZENIT W600 SMDs on the sides of the catwalk, which were operated in full-pixel mode, enabling them to be flexibly synchronised with the stage visuals and audience lighting.

IMAGE CREDITS: Joana Suslaviciute