Lighting on tour with Harrison Coons and Tiago Degen-Portnoy

On the Ice Cube Truth to Power – Four Decades of Attitude North American tour, lighting designer Harrison Coons and L2 and zactrack operator Tiago Degen-Portnoy teamed up to deliver a powerful show across 22 cities. To ensure consistent follow spotting for the main act and his guests, zactrack SMART was an integral part of the production.

© Harrison Coons

The tour hit major cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, celebrating Ice Cube’s long and influential career in music. The tour featured zactrack SMART, supplied by ACT Entertainment. Programmer and experienced zactrack operator Ariah Haley provided essential training before the tour, ensuring the team was ready to maximize the system’s capabilities. Despite their busy tour schedule, the team took the time to answer a few of our questions.

What creative and technical goals did you have for the lighting before going into the Truth to Power – Four Decades of Attitude tour?

Harrison: Cube did a fantastic job of turning this tour into a journey through his entire career — from the early ’80s to today — highlighting each decade along the way. The goal was to make the show as dynamic as possible. Even Cube wanted the lighting to evolve throughout the performance, constantly adding energy and movement from start to finish.

What specific lighting techniques or effects are you using to enhance the overall production?

Harrison: I’ve used a lot of different lighting techniques on this tour, but one key feature is the programmed moving spots on the downstage/thrust trusses. These are built into my time coding and programming, but they’re also integrated with zactrack. This allows me to hit a button/macro and have zactrack override the programmed cues depending on where Cube is on stage. It really helps when he’s in some of those unusual angles or spots by adding extra light from different directions.

What made you decide to go with the zactrack SMART system?

Harrison: The original idea for zactrack came in the spring from our creative director, Chad Fuller, during a Zoom call with Ice Cube. Chad explained how the system works without operators, offering great consistency and reliability.

Ice Cube immediately liked the idea, because he liked the concept of not having different operators every day and a more consistent and smoother flow for the show.

What does your technical setup look like and how has touring been so far?

Tiago: We’re running two grandMA3 full-size consoles at front of house, connected via fiber to Dimmer Beach. There, a grandMA3 light acts as our flash console and tracking backup, with MA nodes and NPUs distributing sACN to the rig. Most of the system runs on sACN, with a few lines still on five-pin copper.

Was this your first time using zactrack tracking in a touring production, and if so, how has the experience been for you?

Harrison: Yes, this was my first time using zactrack, and so far, the experience has been great. It's been really smooth, very consistent, and I like it so far.

Tiago: This is also my first time ever using a zactrack system. We both got some really great training, which set us up well to figure things out we didn’t know, and we had the resources to ask questions when we hit roadblocks. Shout out to Ariah Haley!

View from the Front of House at Ice Cube's Truth to Power tour. © Harrison Coons

How did the system setup go for your arena shows?

Tiago: Setup has been quick and painless every day, especially with the automatic refinement. Once I get a good puck calibration, I can do a quick fixture calibration, and give Harrison tight, accurate spots every night. We’re using nine anchors flown. The anchors are built into the trusses and looms, and everything connects during load-in.

I’ve got two spares I can deploy as needed if there are any dead zones. We have seven trackers, which we can distribute as needed to our primary artist, primary guest, and any additional guest artists.

Harrison: zactrack integrates smoothly once I learned how to patch it under each fixture and how the parent fixture worked. It was easy to add or remove fixtures in the system depending on how we wanted the show to run.

What would you say is the biggest advantage of using automated tracking – both for this show and in general?

Harrison: The best part is it removes human error. On tour, spot ops are often local and unfamiliar with the show, so having a consistent, accurate system that fits our show flow and can be programmed really helps on my end.

Tiago: For me, it's repeatability – same truss positions every night, same colour temperature because it's the same fixtures. I don't have to adjust anything or take anything else into consideration. It just works every single night.

What’s been your biggest takeaway on the tour so far?

Tiago: Calibrate, calibrate, calibrate. If it’s not perfect, do it again. Adjust your pucks, your alignment, your fixture alignment – keep going until it’s right. The system only gives what you put into it, so if your alignment is perfect, the system will be too.

Harrison: And for me, again, having that consistency – just having the same lights and fixtures follow him without question, without worrying about operators. It puts a whole new spin on the game.

Can you see yourselves using zactrack on future projects?

Harrison: Definitely. It has a lot of potential across different types of productions – not just arena tours, but also theatres, smaller tours, television, you name it. I’ve seen it used in several ways and can absolutely see myself using it again.

Tiago: Same here. I’m really excited to keep exploring what zactrack can do – especially integrating it into automation rigs and getting creative with how the software and system work together.

Watch our exclusive interview series with Harrison and Tiago on YouTube.