Header: STURDY.
Bad Bunny’s “No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí” residency in Puerto Rico is special for many reasons: the artist’s love for his home country and the award-winning lighting design. The studio responsible, STURDY., with Marcus Jessup as lead designer, saw its work recognised at the LIT Lighting Design Awards, winning the categories Live Design Lighting, Music Event Lighting, and Stage Lighting. The shows take place at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan and are closely tied to Bad Bunny’s relationship with the island.
The set
The main stage is formed as a mountain, and another area is built as a traditional Puerto Rican house, “la casita”. These are direct references to the local landscape and the island’s traditional architecture, so the lighting had to complement elements that already carried a lot of meaning to both the artist and the audience.
According to the studio, the goal of the lighting was to create an atmosphere that celebrates Puerto Rican culture and supports the emotional weight of the music. In practice, this meant using colour, brightness, direction, and movement of light to adjust the audience’s mood and focus to each song.
The lighting
The designers had to work with more than just lighting fixtures to achieve the desired effect: video content, stage architecture, and special effects. Light on the performers, the mountain structure, “la casita”, the screens, and any pyro were planned together, so each moment feels like every detail of production is in sync. When the video changes or an effect happens, the lighting is programmed to move with it so the audience can clearly follow what is happening.
Because the show stays in one venue for many nights, the lighting team doesn’t have to pack up the equipment and rebuild it in a new arena each day. Everything stays in the same place, which means they can perfect the lighting very precisely. They can adjust angles, brightness, and timing so the light hits the mountain stage, the house, and the performers exactly as intended. The result is a lighting design that can open up the full arena for high-energy moments or pull focus back to details tied to Puerto Rico when the show becomes more nostalgic.
