The band, Heart has sold over 35 million records and were inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, noting at the time that Heart was the first female-fronted hard rock band. Heart's mix of hard rock and folk yielded one of the longest lasting and most commercially successful bands of all time. Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson inspired many women to pick up an electric guitar and start a band. In fact, Lzzy Hale, of Halestorm, cites Heart as a major influence. Heart's Royal Flush tour, which was recently extended into 2026, is out with a powerful design. Production/Lighting Designer Carl Burnett, Principal of Carl Burnett Design, who has worked with the band since 2019, recently took time during the tour on a day off to speak with PLSN about his lighting that visually supports this iconic design.

What was the design aesthetic you wanted for the tour?

Obviously, it's a legacy artist, so you've got to treat them with some respect, and it's a rock band, so you've got to take that into account as well. I didn't want it to be a cookie cutter sort of design. This is a rock band. And it has to look, I think, classy as well, because there's a lot of their stuff that warrants that. Sympathetic to the legacy of Heart, but every now and again, the way I put it is - it can bite. It can be a nice, gentle, lovely design, but it can bite you as well. It does have the ability to look like a full-on rock show and absolutely batter all your senses. It doesn't do that very often, so when it does do it, you notice it. I try to get a classic, classy look. That's basically what I was going for with this tour design. 

Tell us a bit about how you use some of the design elements. 

The design is based on making it theatrical; creating a theater, so it is very drapey as the main focus, without noticing it. I like things that you don't really notice, or if they weren't there, you might go, "what's missing?" The backdrop is a Black Chrome Illusion Austrian drape from Sew What?. In daylight, it looks gun metal gray, but when you light it, it sparkles a little bit. I also project onto the backdrop, but when I'm not projecting, we're not left with a big black screen, you've still got a backdrop, and it takes light and color really well. Also, that's how I'm using the video really. Nothing's telling a story; there's no pictures as such. It's all moving graphics and I'm treating projection as another light, really it's just adding texture. 

I use movement and texture betweem songs as well. Quite often when we finish one song and before we go into the next, there's a guitar change, or they talk to the audience. That is when I have a version of what they're about to see come up on the backdrop. So, there's movement on stage most of the time. To be honest, that's me trying to not put bloody Congo Blue up between songs. You know how most put up a Congo Blue so the band can see what they're doing and all that, I feel if I put up something on the backdrop, whatever is happening on stage it is illuminated enough for them to see, and it also stays visually interesting for the audience. 

What were some challenges of the design and how did you solve them?

One of the challenges is always budget. The other is that we're playing mostly arenas, but we are in some theaters as well; at some bigger theaters like the Fox Theaters. So, the design does have to adapt quite a bit; cut down to make it fit. This is why I tend to go towards using drapes in my design. The idea with drapes, is that it doesn't matter where you are, it looks like it's your show and it looks the same every day. Even if today's it's 40' wide rather than 60' wide, it still looks like the same design. There might be 40 lights missing, but the only person who's going to notice is me. 

What were some of your key gear choices, and what were some of the features you relied on?

Because we're doing arenas and generally trimming the front truss off the floor at like 37' or something, the lights have to be capable of those throws. The Robe Fortes came into their own there because they're punchy as hell. I also decided rather than do the traditional wash, which I did do last year where I did 50/50 profiles and washes, this time I've gone for all Fortes profiles. I wanted all the lights to look exactly the same. There are certain songs where there's tight beams and everything's uniform. Whereas if you've got a mix of wash and profile fixtures, it's more difficult to do that. 

I'm also using the Chauvet Color Strike M, but I never use strobes; ever. Now that they've gone LED, they can be anything. They give me a great color wash. Obviously, there's still the strobe-y element in the middle that doesn't color, but that's fine. I use them, for the most part, as an alternative for crowd illumination. If it's a story being told in between songs, then I bring up a nice color on the audience so Nancy or Ann can actually see who they;really are talking to. It just makes it feel a bit more intimate rather than having blinders on. I think it helps include the audience and makes them feel more a part of the show rather than having a person standing on stage talking to a black void. 

I use Robe Tetra 2s for the backdrop, which is 60' x 30', so I have 12 up in the air in pre-rig truss, which the drape is hung from, and 15 of them on the floor. Then there's another 10 that go across. There's a stage set that is about eight feet in front of the backdrop. They're just 6' x 8' platforms, basically empty carts with the same drape wrapped around them. So, there are 10 Tetras that go in front of those carts, so they can be slightly different colors. The bottom part is one color, and the backdrop is lit with, dare I say it, Congo Blue. 

How was Gateway Studios & Production Services' support for you on this tour?

Phenomenal. I hadn't worked with them before. I've known [GSPS Account Executive] Paul Owen since around 1981, so he tends to be my go-to person. When he told me he was going to Gateway, we had a look at what they had to offer. They might be going through some growing pains, but I can say, they have been really good. 

How was working with Tony Moon, the Production Manager?

Working with Tony is excellent. He is very supportive; just fantastic. He runs a tight ship, and it's all working really well. The whole team, the band, the crew, and everybody, is like a unit. Everybody gets on, and people hang out together. Crew and band, even different members of crew from different departments. I think a lot of that - certainly the crew side - is down to Tony Moon. The fact that he's nurtured a very happy camp is seen on days off when different groups go out with different people. Just the other night, we had a Spinal Tap viewing of the two movies at a theater for the whole team. Ann and Nancy hosted that. It is a fun, happy group of people. 

What's something you'd hope another designer would notice about your design?

That it is classy, and as I say, but it also bites you every now and again. You're not expecting it to, because it's quite beautiful generally, I think. And then, every now and again, it shows its teeth. It's a nice constrast, some it's something that people, I think, will be surprised by. 

What are you using for control?

I'm using grandMA2, actually grandMA3, but it's 2 mode. I used my grandMA2s last year that I own, but because I want to start going towards the MA3, I started to use the MA3 hardware and leave my consoles at home. The main idea was that I didn't want to completely reprogram from MA2 to MA3, but what I do want to do is get used to the hardware; the buttons are in different places and things like that. 

Any Programmers, Associates, or Assistants you ant to call out for this one?

Programming on this one is all me, but I want to call out Max Conwell. Man is an LD in his own right who lights Morrissey, and he was an Associate LD on this one. He helped me out and is a good collaborator. If it was all up to me, I'd probably have 12 trucks of lights. He's good at going, 'Do you really need that? Why not do this?' It was good having him around as a sounding board to bounce ideas off. Also, I use Vectorworks, which I'm quite good at it, but he's brilliant at it. So, he was really good about doing this drawings and stuff to show people. We used Depence for previz, so he did the realistic stuff for me. 

Is there a moment or a specific song that really worked for you in the show, and why?

There are a couple here that I really look forward to. There's "Crazy on You," which I think looks really good. I have a whole light moving situation that goes with the chorus. The other one that I'm particularly proud of, and it took hours to program, is "The Ocean." They do a couple of Led Zepplin covers, and one is "The Ocean," which is unexpected, I think. Its lighting is different to everything else. For instance, all the lights are pointing downstage right. Every single one of them is pointed stage right. It's very different from the rest of the show, and it really stands out. It's not symmetrical; it's just slightly odd because it looks like the wind blows everything over to the right. I don't know if anybody else notices it, but every single light is pointing slightly right; only at about a 25 degree angle. If you listen to "The Ocean," think of the beat; there's, I think, three or four different variations of it. I programmed each one. It gets a GO from me, but then it goes through its beat, which is probably two bars, or something. Each one of those probably took me about three hours to get the time in, absolutely spot on. I'm quite proud of it. I did get a little bit obsessed with it, which is why it took that long. Really, I am quite proud of the whole show though. It is a design that I think supports a truly classic band with a good rock'n'roll show. It has some unexpected moments, some that even bite. 

This article originally appeared in PLSN.