grandMA3 Supports Yo Yo Honey Singh's A MILLIONAIRE tour

India – Lighting designers Bala Subramanya, aka Vinod, and Guru Somayaji of design studio 369 Design Lab specified a grandMA3 system for lighting control on the recent "MILLIONAIRE INDIA TOUR” by popular Indian rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh, which played 10 major cities to the delight of his fans.

One of the biggest – and larger than life – influencers and personalities on the Indian music scene, Yo Yo Honey Singh is known for his energy and great connection to the audience, and the tour has won widespread acclaim.

Vinod has been working with grandMA control from 2014 and Guru from 2018 starting with grandMA2, and apart from that, the primary reason for specifying grandMA3 for this tour was the power, flexibility, and ease of use that it offered. 

369 Design Lab exclusively works on grandMA3 systems now, with all their LDs adapting to the latest software version 2.3.

Knowing that programming time would be tight once the tour started, with several back-to-back shows in the itinerary, and with three different versions of the design to fit the different venues, “we needed a robust control solution that was MVR-friendly,” explained Guru. He added that as a design studio generally they often use Vectorworks, so the workflow and ability to quickly and cleanly export data made grandMA3 an obvious choice!

Lighting rental vendor SSL Lights from Mumbai supplied a total of four grandMA3 full-size consoles and two grandMA3 processing unit L for this tour, together with approximately 350+ lighting fixtures. 369 Design Lab also used a grandMA3 onPC 2Port Node to control Xylo wrist bands separately, with two devices on each site.

369 Design Lab collaborated closely with pixel mapping and projection specialist Pixadoo Visuals and with the artist himself and his creative team. Pixadoo’s VJ Kaycee took on the role of creative director and strategist. “His experience and wizardry at executing large-scale concerts and events were a massive asset,” commented Guru.

The combined trussing layout, stage design and lighting plot was imagined by 369 Design Lab, with Pixadoo Visuals collaborating in creating the overall look and ambience, as well as integrating some stunning visuals into the environment.

Vinod noted that the design process started with the initial ideas mused over using pen and paper, a tried-and-tested methodology that never fails, and the pick of these are then drawn up in Vectorworks.

369 Design Lab pride themselves in presenting designs and ideas that can be practically achieved and are properly viable from a production aspect.

On the road, Guru shared operating duties with Vinod, his business partner and co-founder of 369 Design Lab, together with Albin Biju as the second lighting operator and FOH team laser specialist.

Vinod, Guru and Albin are based in Bangalore, but Vinod literally moved the office including the desktop server running Vectorworks 2025 over to Mumbai when it came to finalising the designs for this tour.

Initially, they had planned to use the two grandMA3 consoles in a live / backup format, but once the show started developing, it was decided to run them in tandem.

All the general stage and effects lighting were run by the first LD at each show – either Guru or Vinod – with the second LD, Albin, focusing on lasers and key lighting for the cameras, as the show was recorded each night, and on haze management, which needed to be super-organised and very strategic to ensure that the lasers also looked great each night.

The lasers were controlled by Pangolin Beyond, triggered via the grandMA3 through Art-Net.

On this tour, they previsualised using grandMA3’s inbuilt 3D viewer and Capture. They now also work with Depence R4 for all their lighting and laser previsualisation, using Beyond for laser programming and Visual Productions’ TimeCore for generating timecode.

The three variants of the lighting and stage design were firstly an indoor version for Mumbai’s NESCO Centre in Goregaon; second was a 360-degree show for the indoor gig at Indira Gandhi stadium in New Delhi; and the third one was for all the other outdoor shows.

The outdoor systems were further divided into two versions based on two different types of Giant Truss – DDR 85 and DDR 86 systems.

The entire tour was executed with the same production suppliers for quality and consistency, including SSL Lights, Mumbai for lighting and consoles; SFX from Shrijee FX in Indore; lasers from Laser VIBGYOR in New Delhi; and the trussing supplier was Giant Truss.

With just three weeks from receiving the green light to loading in at the first show, 369 Design Lab had to work very fast and efficiently. “This is one of the benefits of being a great team and working with fantastic equipment like grandMA3, which helps us achieve our goals of presenting the very best show for our client and experience for the audience,” concluded Guru.