Thirty years on from their formation, Foo Fighters embarked on the most ambitious production of their career – a global stadium tour across the UK, Europe, North America, and Australia. At 197 feet wide and 65 feet high, the Take Cover stage is the largest the band has ever toured. Wonder Works was approached by production manager, Eric “Ski” Piontkowski to lead the technical design and coordination, translating Dan Hadley and Paul “Arlo” Guthrie’s creative vision into a fully engineered, repeatable touring system.
The defining feature of the design is a set of nine custom curved aluminium lighting ribs, fabricated by Atlanta Rigging Services (ARS). Each rib begins off-stage and sweeps behind the band in a wide arc, wrapping the performance space in a structure that is both architectural and kinetic. Crucially, the ribs sit permanently in front of the iMag and upstage LED screens – a unique choice that breaks up the video surface and adds physical depth to the stage.
Jeremy Lloyd, Director, Wonder Works: “The lighting ribs are unlike anything we’ve done before – nine curved beams wrapping the stage, sitting in front of the screen and breaking up the video wall. That’s what gives the show its unique identity and layered look.”
The visual language is old school industrial and analogue. The stage roof header – which stays visible throughout the show – features a band of factory windows complete with distressed metalwork and rusted, smashed-glass detailing. At key moments, matching floor window pieces are rolled in and PAR Can trusses lowered, stripping the show back to a harder, more vintage rock aesthetic. It is an intentional contrast: stadium-scale production that can still feel raw.
Nine custom lighting pods, fabricated by ARS, are suspended above the stage, each carrying moving lights, LED strobes, and fascia panels finished to match the set’s industrial aesthetic. Following the stripped back PAR Can section, the pods transform the remainder of the show by introducing movement and transforming the architecture inside the performance area. The identity carries through into the audience with matching pods on the delay towers, fabricated by PRG, which wrap the top of each tower and hinge together for protection in transit – a detail that reflects the broader engineering discipline required across a tour of this scale and pace.
A shared roof system presented one of the central coordination challenges. Across the European and North American legs, the tour moves between Stageco and G2 Structures roofs – each with different dimensions that affect the length of the lighting ribs and the positioning of PA wings. Wonder Works managed the design modifications required for each configuration, ensuring the show’s visual identity remained intact across venues with different structural footprints. Custom wind bracing for the video screens, lighting ribs and PA, designed and supplied by WowAxis, ensured the structure could perform safely and consistently throughout the tour.
The result is a production that feels bespoke despite operating within the constraints of shared infrastructure. The custom ribs, the factory aesthetic, the deliberate old-school moments – each detail is designed to belong to the band. The scale is unprecedented for Foo Fighters, but the character is unmistakably theirs.
CREDITS
Production and Lighting Design – Dan Hadley | Associate Designer – Paul “Arlo” Guthrie | Production Manager – Eric “Ski” Piontkowski | Tour Director – John “JC” Cutcliffe | Production Rigger – Jim Allison | Technical Design and Coordination – Wonder Works (Jeremy Lloyd, Nick Evans, Andy Bailey, Kevin Edwards, Josh Clark) | Lighting Ribs, Lighting Pods and Factory Windows – Atlanta Rigging Services (ARS) | Emblem and B-Stage – Tait | Lighting, Video and Delay Lighting Pods – PRG | Audio – Britannia Row | SFX – Strictly FX | Stage Roof (Europe) – Stageco | Stage Roof (North America) – G2 Structures
