While working on the stage design for Istanbul Festival, Stage & Production Designer İbrahim Kandemir of i’Kandemir Design Studio asked himself the question: “How can I bring the energy, rhythm, and silhouette of Istanbul to a stage?” His answer came in the form of what he described as “a contemporary urban structure that reflects the modern face of Istanbul”.
“The forms I drew inspiration from came directly from everyday life – particularly the city’s high-rises illuminated by night, which shaped the foundation of the design,” Kandemir commented, explaining how the stage reflected his personal journey. “After countless nights of sketching, imagining, and recreating, bringing Istanbul’s modern face to life on a festival stage made me feel the emotion I had been chasing for years. What you see on this stage today is a true reflection of my love for my work.”
Working with client Focus İstanbul on the festival for the fourth year running, Kandemir and his team were tasked with producing a stage capable of hosting performances by more than 35 local and international artists, from Mor ve Ötesi to Jennifer Lopez, who added the festival as a date on her Up All Night: Live in 2025 tour.
Inspired by Istanbul’s identity as the ‘City of Seven Hills’, the stage architecture was built around seven distinct tower forms. “These towers were designed after the city’s most iconic skyscrapers, bringing Istanbul’s modern architectural language to the festival stage,” Kandemir explained. “I wanted the audience to see not just a performance, but a familiar cityscape in the background. That’s why this stage stands not as a building, but as a representation of a city.” In the background, a tulip-shaped structure was added to soften transitions and provide a poetic contrast, resulting in a design that Kandemir dubbed “both urban and lyrical”.
The role of i’Kandemir Design Studio wasn’t limited to just creative, with the company maintaining a thorough technical oversight, creating a technical design built entirely to support the creative vision. Spanning 1,300 sq m of LED surfaces, equipped with nearly 800 lighting fixtures and 184 speakers, the stage created a full sensory experience. “My goal was to design a structure where every element was synchronised; where visual and auditory layers intertwined flawlessly,” Kandemir commented. “The sound towers reached up to 26m because, for me, it was essential that the audience at the very back experienced the show with the same clarity and intensity as those in the front row.”
After the stage was drafted in Vectorworks by Senanur Sağlam and Eyüp Muvafık, and previsualised in Depence by Kaan Kandemir, a dedicated production team of almost 200 people worked on the meticulous 22-day setup. The stage transformed into various guises throughout the 17 consecutive days of the festival, with a rebuild required every night to accommodate the incoming production.
“We are very proud to have built a stage that stands at the heart of Istanbul both technically and aesthetically,” Kandemir stated, also noting the green credentials of the stage, with some of the set reused to create library racks for local schools and some donated to build animal shelters.
As well as the consecutive overnight load-ins, the weather also brought its fair share of challenges. “The wind added a huge challenge during the setup phase and show period,” Kandemir commented. “We monitored conditions constantly and ensured that towers were lowered whenever wind speeds became too high.”
The lighting rig comprised 48 Ayrton Domino LT fixtures, 52 GLP JDC1 Strobes as well as a significant inventory of fixtures from German brand, Lotus Lighting, including 199 Chameleon 300, 136 ST Aqua100, 105 Premium 400, 110 Titan 1200, 22 Scorpion 10, and 16 Elisium 1000, with the festival’s Lighting Programmer, Ali Ateş, at the helm of an MA Lighting grandMA3. Tim Routledge and Paul Abdullah meanwhile specified an additional lighting uplift for the Jennifer Lopez show.
After being introduced to Lotus Lighting at LDI Las Vegas late last year, the i’Kandemir Design Studio team was sufficiently impressed to recommend the brand to Turkish rental house Solid Technical Solutions, which duly made a significant investment with the understanding that the fixtures would be put to good use on the Istanbul Festival. “We had a full spectrum of Lotus Lighting fixtures on the show, and they performed extremely well,” Kandemir commented. “Despite wind, rain and dust, the fixtures stood up to the test; they looked great and ran smoothly.”
Joining technical production company Solid Technical Solutions on the supplier roster were stage construction company, GIGA Solutions, and power supplier, LND Energy.
Visual Operator, Harun Sinan Gül, utilised the power of Dataton WATCHOUT media servers and NovaStar N9 switchers to manage content across the massive 1,300 sq m of 3.9mm AVA LED. Disguise media servers were additionally brought in especially for the Jennifer Lopez show.
Aziz Berk Erten designed an extensive L-Acoustics sound system, with the main PA comprising flown arrays of 12 K1, three K2 and 12 K1-SB per side. A further 12 K2 per side were used for out fill, with 18 KS28 per side ground stacked to provide low end and 10 Kara II per side for front fill. There was also a delay system comprising 12 K1 and six KS28 per side, amplification came courtesy of 60 LA12X, and three P1 Processors were utilised.
The whole system was operated over a redundant AVB network with analogue fallback, while Yamaha was the control brand of choice throughout, with a Rivage PM5 at FOH, a DM7 at monitors and a CL5 in reserve.
The wider team included: Construction Designer, Ersin Aylı; Artist and Technical Director, Ferit Ceyhan; Artist and Booking Manager, Mert Adıgüzel; and Hospitality Manager, Nihan Hatipoğlu.
Deniz Aslanboğa, Ahmet Yapa, Barkın Kula, Alican Yılmaz, Serkan Türk, and Alper Çakır fulfilled Stage Manager Duties; while Production Assistants, Nil Paşalı, Berra Kap, Barış Kadıoğlu, Aysun Şayık, and Nazlı Aydın ensured the show ran smoothly.
With almost 1.5 million attendees over 17 consecutive days, it would be easy to focus on the massive scale of the project as its biggest success. However, for Kandemir, the most important thing was the audience experience. “The massive LED screens, the lighting, and the audio are all great, but creating something that will live in the memories of the audience is the greatest achievement,” he reflected. “To help create a memory for every single person in the audience – no matter which category of ticket they bought – is what is truly important.”
Photos: Gökçe Göksu, Nurhan Ateş
