By Baz Halpin
To help put what I do as a producer and director into perspective from a musical lens, I’ll start off by rewinding to my early career—before working with incredible talents like Taylor Swift, Backstreet Boys, Usher, and P!nk. I was on a path to becoming a classical musician and playing in a symphony orchestra after university.
I worked in the national concert hall in Dublin, Ireland and became friendly with a lighting technician. During my shifts, I would pull out a handful of lights, turn on the radio and try to program a musical sequence before the song finished. Sort of like a sprint. I quickly developed this passion for how the lights can become a musical instrument.
This next part is pretty cliche… When I was 18, I was hanging floodlights on lampposts to light Guinness banners on a rainy night in Cork (a city in the south of Ireland). I had no idea who the client was, but it turned out to be a gentleman who was the lighting designer for many of the great rock bands of the ‘80s. He traveled all over the world and lived a life I knew nothing about. I had no idea that touring existed up until this point. He was enamored by the fact that I was willing to climb a lamppost in the rain and risk electrocution and thought there was something there.
He gave me the opportunity to be the lighting roadie on tour with Jethro Tull in the U.K. I thought it would just be to make some money over the summer and ended up falling in love with it. Sort of like joining the circus, I never came back.
I loved the creation in this role and the fact that you’re contributing to how the music is being received by the audience. I was the lighting designer for Queen when they reformed after Freddie’s passing, with Paul Rodgers as the frontman. The music of Queen is a lighting designer’s dream. The complexity, the variety and the energy of the music lends itself so perfectly to theatrics and dramatic lighting. When the music hits that peak, or when there’s a sudden crash out, a drum fill, a guitar solo, being able to mimic those musical moments with the visuals felt like I was contributing to the experience of the music.
As a designer, you have that responsibility to understand musically what’s going on. It’s not just flashing lights to a beat, but finding the different instrumentation. What’s going to represent the strings when they enter? How do you leave yourself enough space to make everything look bigger and bigger if the song keeps going? Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times” is a classic example of this.
Fast forward to now, I am a director and producer, and the Founder and CEO of Silent House Group, an award-winning creative studio and production company out of L.A. To sum it up, I am responsible for bringing the music to life visually. So how do you do this in an authentic way and truly connect with your audience? Here are my tips from nearly three decades in this industry.
TIP No. 1: My first tip for anyone looking to add lighting into their show starts with emotion. It can be expressed through lighting in many ways with color being the most obvious. I’ve always attributed certain music to specific colors (synesthesia) and it seems mostly nonnegotiable. Music connects and moves you in such a primitive, subconscious way and light has a similar trait.
TIP No. 2: You don’t need to do everything all of the time. Don’t be afraid to go full bore and commit, but also don’t be afraid of drama or darkness. I think a lot of people get uncomfortable if there isn’t enough light on stage or if it’s a total blackout or if there’s a single spotlight on a singer.
When you’re sculpting the light, you’re creating images and pictures. You’re telling a story by giving a visual home to the sonics you hear. It doesn’t always need to be flashing in time to the music. It doesn’t always need to be the brightest thing in the world. It just has to have light and shade.
TIP No. 3: The third tip is to always have a clear line of communication with your lighting designer. The more descriptive you can be as an artist, the more educated your designer or creative director can be, and the better the final product. Oftentimes, what you don’t like is just as valuable as what you do like. Being able to reference images or other artists helps this tremendously.
TIP No. 4: Originality. This can be the hardest thing, especially when we’re living in an age of algorithms. As an artist, look for somebody who has an original look, can understand you, and create something that is uniquely you. You want to stand out and be unique.
I often hear artists saying they want to do something that’s never been done before. For the most part, everything has been done before, it’s just done in different ways. So it’s carving something out for you that feels original, but also feels authentic. Fans have a very clear understanding of their artists, and there’s sort of a contract when they come to see a show.
Baz Halpin, Silent House Group CEO and Founder, is a three-time Emmy Award winner who most recently produced Netflix’s first-of-its- kind live streaming event called Tudum 2025, Las Vegas Sphere residencies for Backstreet Boys and The Eagles, the live television special Opry100 on NBC, and returned for the second year to produce the 31st SAG Awards on Netflix. In 2024, Halpin produced the blockbuster film Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, the 98th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Usher’s 2024 Super Bowl Halftime performance, and Noche UFC at Las Vegas Sphere. Previously, he served as a producer on shows such as American Idol, American Music Awards, MTV European Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, and iHeartRadio Music Awards. He is also known for his work in producing and creating concert tours and residencies, including but not limited to: Britney Spears’ Las Vegas residency, Katy Perry’s Play Las Vegas residency and Super Bowl Halftime performance; Taylor Swift’s Eras, Reputation, 1989, Red, and Speak Now tours; Harry Styles’ Love On Tour, Live On Tour, and his 2022 Coachella-headlining performance; Jonas Brothers’ Happiness Begins Tour; and P!nk’s Truth About Love, Beautiful Trauma, Summer Carnival, Funhouse, and I’m Not Dead tours. Halpin has also directed and produced performances at the Academy Awards, GRAMMY Awards, King Charles’ coronation, and President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
