Version 2 delivers major lighting upgrades for David Bishop on Strictly Come Dancing 2025

Version 2 has continued its long-standing partnership with Lighting Designer David Bishop on Strictly Come Dancing, supplying all lighting fixtures for the series and supporting a number of targeted lighting upgrades for the 2025 season. The investment focused on fixture and system refinements designed to enhance colour consistency, beam architecture and operational flexibility – while improving precision and repeatability for live broadcast.

The production ran 16 follow spots with seven operators. Six dedicated dance follow spots operating from side positions were upgraded from traditional units to ROBE Forte moving heads fitted with LightMaster kits.

“Whilst the back spots remained RoboSpot fixtures, the dance spots became manually controlled Forte moving heads,” explains David. “For me, the human-led movement tracks the choreography more gracefully than any current automated system.”

This upgrade also delivered full colour control across the follow spot system, removing gel changes and enabling tighter tonal matching to choreography, camera treatment and on- screen content.

Elsewhere in the rig, Martin MAC One fixtures were deployed as a flexible beam and “eye-candy” solution. David said: “They’re affordable, they’re light, they do amazing things! I used lots of them for Florence and the Machine at the Royal Albert Hall and they held their own with much larger fixtures.”

On Strictly, MAC Ones replaced the previous under-balcony fixtures – with units repositioned and increased in quantity – and were also installed throughout the set header.

“Under the balcony the MAC Ones gave me eye-candy but also provided amazing cross light. We also used them in the header to provide not only twinkling eye-candy but a whole new higher level of beams, which made it look huge,” David added.

In presenter and audience areas – including the ‘Clauditorium’ – multiple tungsten fixtures were replaced with DeSisti 4.7VW LED fresnels, ETC Lustrs and variable white LED panels. The changes reduced gel consumption and power draw, improved white-balance consistency, and extended creative colour control in mixed source environments.

Simon Perrott, Senior Project Manager, Version 2, said: “David’s vision for Strictly was once again bold, musical, and unmistakably cinematic. We’re delighted to have supported him with technology choices that helped create such memorable moments for viewers at home.”

“Version 2 has been with me since my first TV show,” said David. “On Strictly, their ability to field the right fixtures at the right time – and keep pushing the rig forward meant we could craft more variation week-to-week.”