Young Voices is one of the largest and most technically complex education based touring productions in the world. Now in its 30th year, the family run organisation brings together around 250,000 children annually from approximately 4,500 schools, performing across major UK arenas including BP Pulse Live, The O2, Wembley Arena and Co-op Live.

While the scale is comparable to major touring artists, the priorities of the show are entirely different. The production must deliver arena level impact while remaining flexible, fast to install and sensitive to the fact that thousands of first-time performers are at the centre of the experience.

Trustee, Clare Edwards commented “At its heart, Young Voices is about giving children opportunities they would not normally have. Many of them have never been inside an arena before, let alone performed in one. Performing contemporary music at this scale helps remove barriers to participation and shows young people where a love of music can lead.”

This year’s tour also introduces guest headline acts in each city, all of whom previously performed in the Young Voices choir as children. Beyond the symbolic significance, the inclusion of headline artists adds an additional production layer, requiring the technical system to support both large scale choir illumination and more conventional band and artist performance lighting within the same show.

A production designed around the choir and the artists

Unlike a traditional concert where the stage naturally becomes the visual centre, Chris Scott approached Young Voices with the understanding that the most important experience in the room is happening throughout the seating bowl. The choir often occupies a significant portion of the arena seating, sometimes filling almost half the venue, which places the emphasis firmly on lighting the audience environment rather than the stage alone.

For the majority of the show, Chris’s priority is ensuring the choir is evenly and sensitively lit, allowing thousands of children to feel visible and connected, rather than lost within the scale of the arena. At the same time, the production must seamlessly accommodate guest headline artists and live bands, requiring the lighting system to transition quickly into a more conventional stage and band focused environment without disrupting the overall flow of the show.

Chris explained that this balance fundamentally shapes his design decisions. The core of the system is 50 Ayrton Huracan fixtures positioned across audience trusses and rear wing trusses, selected for their ability to deliver consistent, even coverage across large seating areas while retaining the flexibility to create dynamic looks for the headline performances. An additional 10 Huracans are deployed on a higher truss in larger venues to illuminate upper seating tiers, a modular element that can be removed when touring smaller arenas.

Previous iterations of the tour utilised VL3500 washes, but fixture upgrades remain a priority year on year, allowing Chris to expand his creative options while maintaining the speed, reliability and repeatability the tour demands.

Speed, consistency and touring efficiency

One of the defining challenges of the Young Voices tour is time. Load ins typically begin at 7am, with the lighting rig required to be fully installed and cleared before lunch. This compressed schedule allows the choir to rehearse throughout the afternoon before performing in the evening, leaving no margin for overrun.

Despite the scale of the rig, the lighting department operates with just two technicians, Jake and Matt, both of whom have worked on the tour for the past four years. Their experience has been instrumental in refining the rig layout and workflow, allowing consistent results to be delivered across multiple venues.

The touring model demands absolute repeatability, with the production moving quickly between some of the UK’s busiest arenas while maintaining a uniform visual standard.

A blank canvas for colour and storytelling

The choir’s uniform white t shirts give Chris a neutral canvas, allowing colour to become the primary storytelling tool. Deep, saturated palettes are used extensively to create energy and define musical moments across thousands of performers.

One of the show’s most recognisable looks is a multicoloured wash that masks the choir. While unconventional in a traditional concert environment, the mosaic effect within the Huracan allows the look to remain cohesive and has become a signature visual moment of the tour.

Another standout sequence appears during the performance of Wicked’s One Short Day, where the Huracan’s animation wheels are used to create a shimmering, jewel like effect across the choir, enhancing the theatrical narrative of the song and immersing the performers into the Emerald City.

Production delivery and collaboration

Supporting lighting designer Chris Scott and the wider Young Voices team is production manager Andy Grey, now in his fourth year with the tour. With a schedule that moves quickly between major arenas while working around the needs of thousands of children, maintaining the right balance between efficiency and atmosphere is a key part of the role.

Andy describes the tour as unusually people focused for an arena scale production, something that has influenced how the technical team is assembled and supported.

“It’s quite an unusual tour in that the whole environment is more family focused rather than your typical rough neck touring,” he explains. “When I joined, I felt it was important to protect that dynamic, and keeping PRG involved was the right choice.”

He continues, “PRG is normally my go to for a lot of my work, and working with Ben Holdsworth and Yvonne Donnelly Smith is always straightforward. The Event Services team do an excellent job of supporting a tour that has very specific requirements and very little room for error.”

Despite the scale and pace of the schedule, collaboration remains central to the tour’s success. Andy adds with a smile, “The only challenge is probably spending too much time on the phone to Ben, because we’re good friends as well as work colleagues.”

Supporting a unique touring model

PRG’s involvement plays a key role in delivering the technical standard required for a production of this scale. Despite being a children’s choir, the show operates to the same expectations as any major arena tour, something that often exceeds the assumptions of audiences attending for the first time.

PRG Account Manager, Ben Holdsworth acts as the primary point of contact for the tour, working closely with the Young Voices team to ensure continuity and efficiency throughout the schedule. Alongside technical delivery, PRG also supports the wider ethos of the project by sponsoring a local school each year, giving pupils the opportunity to take part in the Young Voices experience who may not otherwise have had access to it.

This is an incredibly well run tour and one that’s genuinely inspiring to be part of,” Ben says. “Supporting a production that introduces so many young people to live events at this level is something PRG are very proud of. Being able to extend that support by sponsoring a local school each year and helping more children get involved is a natural extension of what Young Voices stands for, and to have been, personally part of the journey for the last six years is fantastic.”

Working closely with Chris Scott the lighting designer to upgrade the equipment year on year is a key part of the process. “Helping realise Chris Scott’s design with a fresh upgrade of cutting-edge product has been particularly satisfying this year” says Ben.  Improving efficiency with new LED source luminaires means we tread lightly. Vital for our common sustainability goals and aspirations.