It’s curious how quick working practices can go from revolutionary to standardised. Even in the mid-2000s, it was a common sight before an artist hit the stage to see crew climbing ladders into the roof to take a seat at their follow-spot. Nowadays, this practice has been eradicated, with various tracking and remote follow-spot options having entered the market, giving designers greater choice when it comes to lighting their artists. One company key to this change is Follow-Me. But for founders Gary Yates and Erik Berends, their original intention was not to form a company or deliver a product; but rather to provide a solution for the industry.
FROM SUEDE TO SOLUTIONS
The origin story for the company came when Yates prepared a tour with the band Suede in 2013: “LD Jip Nipius asked me about followspots for this tour, clubs to big theatres, and no traditional spot was going to keep the lead singer lit on stage and out in the auditorium,” he recalled. “I’d been playing with an idea, so we remotely operated a Cyberlight in the truss. No camera integration then; I just stood at front of house and followed him.
“During a break I got talking to Erik, who I’d known since the ‘90s. We knew something was missing and agreed to give it a go. We then got our product onto Def Leppard with Upstaging, Volbeat with Neg Earth Lights. That took us international almost overnight. That trust came from years of relationships. Erik’s always had the how and I brought the why and our experience from the road and industry knowledge that still distinguishes Follow-Me.”
Berends, who at the time was working on Muse’s Drones World Tour. “After Gary reached out to me and explained his predicament and the initial design ideas he worked on, together we developed a prototype that enabled fixtures in the rig to be controlled with a joystick from the ground.”
Still in its rudimentary stages, this first breakthrough addressed a real issue that arose when manually controlling moving heads from the ground. “The core problem is that fixtures move in an angular fashion, but naturally in our heads we think about up and down, left and right,” stated Berends. “We had to produce a linearisation within the software so a joystick would be able to naturally work with the movement of a moving head.”
On that first outing, the yet-unnamed solution that Berends and Yates had created had already begun to spark interest within the lighting community. “We were getting a lot of interest, but then one day we got a call from a big lighting designer who was working on a large-scale TV shoot in the Netherlands,” remembered Berends. “He was having issues as he wanted to backlight performers but had no way of putting an operator behind the stage due to a surround LED wall. We brought our solution to the studio and in a few days, our product was then being used on one of the country’s biggest TV shows.”
Although the roots of Follow-Me are deeply ingrained in live touring, the duo has always been agnostic about the verticals it has provided solutions for. In fact, many innovations that Follow-Me has brought to the touring market have been developed in response to requests from other industries. One such example that Berends pointed to was Follow-Me’s proximity effect, where the Follow-Me system can translate positioning data, which can then be used to effect looks across the entire rig. “We had a rental company that wanted to light a corporate client’s CEO’s presentation with only static lights. But they still wanted to ensure he was lit, so we used our positioning data so only the lights closest to him would shine, so the whole rig acting as a follow-spot.”
This learning, where the positioning data could affect other parts of a stage, was then applied to several other touring shows. One notable example being The Rolling Stones. The band’s production had the positioning data affect the uplighting on the stage depending on where their musicians were on the stage.
With the Follow-Me team always looking to try and solve problems for designers, the company’s product has become very much a hybrid of the two dominant forms of tracking. “We’re quite unique with Follow-Me as it can do both automated and manual tracking,” stated Berends. “We are not convinced that a single solution is right for all productions. If you have a highly repetitive show, that is choreographed and the same each night, automation is the answer, but if you have a one-off, I will not recommend doing the automated system. We started with a manual offering but knew early that we wanted to start including automation.”
He went on to highlight that having both options also gives productions a failsafe if anything goes wrong. “Live shows can be unpredictable,” he stated plainly, giving an example when, due to a human error, a live TV talent show was saved with the team taking over on the manual controls with just a push of a button to ensure that the artist was still in the spotlight when they hit the stage, while not being handed her tags.”
TEN YEARS IN
For humble beginnings, Berends, Yates and Managing Director Marc Van der Wel have grown the team to 18 employees working at the company’s HQ in Hazerswoude-Dorp, near Amsterdam. “The company has seen some notable expansion post-COVID,” explained van der Wel, who personally joined the company in 2019. “With the launch of solutions such as TRACK-iT (the company’s automated tracking solution), we had all kinds of applications for different markets. Recently we’ve found our products being used in everything from concert touring at the beginning, to theatre, broadcast along with theme parks and cruise ships.”
The MD continued that there has been a real focus in the company’s R&D department to ensure Follow-Me can find solutions to requests from designers. “We also have Luke Edwards and Chris Lose – based out of the UK and US respectively – who are constantly connecting with end users.”
Berends added: “Not only do the two of them have a lot of industry experience, but they have also been vital in connecting with clients focussed on their applications.”
With distribution partners in every major territory, van der Wel commented that rental houses were still its biggest customer base. “This has worked out well as our products can always be added to. Everything is being created as a building block, making the solution very flexible and, therefore, enabling companies to achieve good ROI.”
A SOLUTION FOR ALL
Although many of the companies that have created new solutions and products within the tracking realm have come from the world of lighting, the solutions and, specifically, the tracking data is a resource that is also being used for all departments for video, audio and even automation. In many recent shows – such as Machine Gun Kelly [TPi #293] – we’ve seen productions utilise PSN data from automation, which can be used by a Follow-Me system to ensure the artists are continually lit.
“We’ve been using these types of solutions for a while,” stated Berends. “Pearl Jam’s rental production company contacted me many years ago, explaining that their next tour would have a fully automated lighting rig and if I had any idea how we’d ensure the fixtures would be calibrated for the various heights.”
van der Wel added: “The use of PSN data for interaction between automation and lighting is very interesting, we’re always really excited to see how people might use the data that we are delivering and how it connects with other areas such as immersive audio processors. This next step has now become regular use, as is providing tracking data for mapped video to video media servers. Interactivity while sharing data over an IP network is a growing element.”
NEW TOYS FOR 2026
At the start of its tenth anniversary, Follow-Me was delighted to unveil its DELT∆ System to the market at ISE. Among its numerous highlights, the team was particularly excited about the Operator Box. Prior to this release, Follow-Me operators on a live show would often share a monitor, with each indicator crosshair displayed. With the Operator Box, each user can have their own dedicated view of the tracking area, complete with individual zoom and target control. Each operator can focus on their assigned target without distraction, even when multiple performers are being tracked simultaneously within the same system.
Also featured on the new update was BeamMap, which ensures consistent fixture intensity, beam size, and focus throughout the performance area, automatically adjusting parameters as performers move across the stage. This feature is particularly valuable for productions that require a consistent visual appearance across the entire stage area. The Follow-Me DELT∆ system is available in two versions; DELT∆ DUO supports tracking up to two performers and control of up to 12 fixtures of any brand and type, making the system perfect for follow-spot lighting, while DELT∆ UNLIMITED supports unlimited performers and fixtures and includes OSC and PSN functionality. DELT∆ UNLIMITED can be upgraded to include full auto tracking with Follow-Me TRACK-iT, to choose the tools you require within the growing eco system.
DO YOU FOLLOW-ME?
After spending time with the Follow-Me team, it’s clear that even after a decade, they seem excited about where this tracking journey will take them next. “There have already been a lot of ‘full circle’ moments,” stated van der Wel. “Very early on in his career, when Gary was working in a warehouse, he got a call that there were a few spot operators short for a U2 show and he dutifully went along to help. Then, 35 years later, we get an email from U2’s Lighting Director to discuss using Follow-Me for a ‘special performance’ at a new Vegas venue. Talk about a full circle moment.”
Berends added: “We’ve only just begun… Tracking in one form or another has been around for 30 years, but it feels like it’s only really become mainstream in the past 10 years, and now it has matured; there are now so many more possibilities. Possibilities that we will further develop for our users.”
Words: Stew Hume
Photos: Follow-Me
