François Vandermeeren
Creative Lighting & Technical Design
For over twenty-five years, I have worked across the worlds of live performance, events, lighting, and audiovisual technologies.
My career has taken me from theatre stages to major international events, through tours, permanent installations, and architectural projects. Over the years, I have developed an approach that combines Lighting Design, Technical Design, programming, and project management.
This breadth of experience now allows me to approach a project as a whole: from the initial idea and artistic intent through to its technical translation, programming, commissioning, and on-site delivery.
After several years dedicated to managing international projects at Laser System Europe (LSE), I chose to fully return to my work as an independent, notably through OpenWhite: Creative Lighting & Technical Design.
A career built in the field
My professional journey began with an internship at Groupe Son Privé, where I discovered the world of live performance and the very specific demands of its technical trades.
I then continued my training at ETF, a company that later became Procon, and then PRG.
Those years allowed me to work on many productions and face extremely varied technical situations. I developed my skills in lighting, programming, and technical operations, while gaining an in-depth understanding of on-the-ground realities.
Above all, I learned something that remains essential in how I work today: a good idea only has value if it can be made real.
Understanding a production’s constraints, anticipating difficulties, working with the different trades, and finding solutions that preserve the artistic intent have always been an integral part of my approach.
Building on this experience, I then chose to become independent. This period allowed me to broaden my scope to many shows, events, festivals, and technical creations, while gradually developing my own vision of the profession.
Béjart Ballet Lausanne: from lighting to technical direction
A major milestone in my journey was joining the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland.
I was first hired as Head of Lighting, before becoming Assistant Technical Director, and then the company’s Technical Director.
Over four years, I contributed to the production of major creations and accompanied the company on numerous international tours.
I supervised multidisciplinary teams and coordinated complex productions on stages around the world. My role required constantly bridging artistic, technical, human, and logistical requirements.
This experience profoundly shaped the way I work. It taught me to stop considering lighting or technology in isolation, and instead to view a production as a whole.
Back to Belgium and independent work
Upon returning to Belgium, I resumed my work as an independent and collaborated with various companies, producers, and industry players, including Luc Petit Création.
I worked on stage creations, concerts, festivals, events, and various installations—whether in design, programming, or technical direction.
These experiences allowed me to develop a deliberately cross-disciplinary profile.
I do not see lighting as an isolated element. It must work with architecture, set design, video, sound, special effects, control systems, and all the technical constraints of a project.
The Covid crisis profoundly disrupted the live performance sector and my activity. It also marked the beginning of a new stage in my professional journey.
Laser System Europe: large-scale international projects
At the end of 2021, I joined Laser System Europe (LSE) as a Project Manager and Lighting Designer.
This experience enabled me to leverage all the skills acquired throughout my career on particularly complex projects with strong international visibility.
My first site assignment for LSE notably took me to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, as part of the New Year’s show—a project especially impressive for its technical scale and global visibility.
I then took on the full direction of a work presented at the Noor Riyadh Festival, handling the project’s artistic, technical, and logistical dimensions.
I also oversaw the implementation of laser systems for the opening show of the Paris Olympic Games around the Eiffel Tower, an operation requiring an especially high level of coordination, precision, and technical control.
My work at LSE also led me to contribute to various institutional and international events, including the French National Day celebrations in Paris as well as Kuwait National Day.
Those years allowed me to significantly strengthen my experience in managing complex international projects, where artistic creation, engineering, programming, safety, logistics, and the coordination of many stakeholders must all coexist.
Today: back to independence
Today, I have chosen to fully return to what has made up a large part of my journey: my work as an independent.
Through OpenWhite: Creative Lighting & Technical Design, I develop an approach centered on Lighting Design and Technical Design, while drawing on my experience in programming, technical direction, and project management.
I aim to get involved as early as possible in projects, so I can build real coherence between the artistic idea and its technical execution.
My work can therefore begin with an intention, an architecture, or a set design, and continue through defining the lighting concept, technical studies, layout, selecting equipment and technologies, programming, technical coordination, delivery follow-up, and ultimately on-site commissioning.
I work both in the field of live performance and events and on permanent installations, architectural projects, or immersive experiences requiring strong technical and audiovisual integration.
My command of lighting consoles, LED systems, lasers, networks, and audiovisual technologies, combined with my field experience, allows me to work with the different stakeholders in a project: artists, set designers, architects, engineering offices, producers, integrators, and technical teams.
After all these years, my way of approaching my profession ultimately remains quite simple: technology should never be an end in itself. It should be a tool in the service of an idea, an emotion, and an experience.
It is this search for balance between creativity, technology, and on-the-ground reality that guides my work today.
ShowTech Tools: tools created from my field experience
Alongside my professional activity, I developed ShowTech Tools, a mobile app designed for live performance, event, and audiovisual professionals and technicians.
The idea came from a very practical observation from my own day-to-day: in the field, we constantly need information, references, and technical calculators, but they are often scattered across multiple apps, websites, or documents.
So I wanted to bring these tools together in a single app designed by and for industry professionals.
ShowTech Tools now brings together tools dedicated in particular to lighting, video, audio, electricity, photometry, laser, and various technical calculations, as well as features directly linked to the needs encountered in preparation or on site.
Available on iOS and Android, the app continues to evolve in line with my own needs and the realities of the profession.
It ultimately reflects my way of working quite well: start from a concrete problem, understand what we really need, and develop a simple, effective, directly usable solution.
After more than twenty-five years spent between Lighting Design, programming, technical direction, project management, and international productions, I am continuing my journey today as an independent with the same drive as when I started: to imagine, understand, design, and deliver.
With one essential difference: the experience I have gained now allows me to support a project from its very first idea through to its on-the-ground delivery, bridging the artistic vision and all the technical realities needed to bring it to life.
