LeRoy 'Roy' Bennett Takes Home Knight of Illumination Award and Parnelli Award

World-renowned lighting designer and visionary, LeRoy "Roy" Bennett was awarded two of the industry's most prestigious awards in the month of October: the Knight of Illumination Award, in the category of "Concert Touring Arena," for his work onLady Gaga's 2014 Artrave: The Artpop Ball tour; and the Parnelli Award, in the category of "Set/Scenic Designer of the Year," for his work on Maroon 5's 2015 World Tour.

The eighth Knight of Illumination Awards ceremony--which recognizes outstanding achievements in the UK by top professionals in touring, television and theatre lighting and video design--was held October 4, at London's Troxy. Click here to view a photo gallery of Bennett's work with Lady Gaga, which earned him the Knight of Illumination Award. The Parnelli Awards--the industry's highest honor for live event professionals since its inception in 2001--were held October 24 in Las Vegas. Click here to view a photo gallery displaying Roy's work with Maroon 5, which garnered him the Parnelli Award for "Set/Scenic Designer of the Year."

"It's always a joy to work with Lady Gaga," says Bennett. "Winning an award for her Artpop Ball tour is just icing on the cake. I always love pushing the limits of what can be done. Maroon 5 and their management completely embraced a concept for their 2015 World Tour that is out of most artists' comfort zone."

One of the industry's most well-known names, Bennett launched his career in 1980, working on Prince's "Dirty Mind" tour. Since then, Bennett has conceived and executed visually striking performance environments for some of the concert industry's biggest draws and brightest emerging stars including: Paul McCartney, Beyoncé,The Weeknd, Keith Urban, NIN, deadmau5, Big Bang and more.

In 2012, Bennett co-founded the Los Angeles-based Seven Design Works, LLC., with two of the concert industry's most promising stage designers, Tobias Rylander, and Cory FitzGerald, to expand design elements into emerging and alternative music markets-from Tobias designing Alexander Wang's Balenciaga show at Paris Fashion Week in 2014 and 2015, to Roy lighting Super Bowl halftime performances for Beyoncé in 2013, Bruno Mars in 2014 and Paul McCartney in2005, and Cory handling the lighting and stage design for Janet Jackson's 2015 "Unbreakable World Tour" and installation for Jennifer Lopez's Las Vegas residency.

"There's a lot of young bands that are coming up, of which I'm really appreciative," says Bennett, looking to the future in an interview with Alarm Magazine (September, 2014). "This is why I started Seven-so I could work with them through my partners. I want to let them know that they can come to me and I can give them my theories and approaches to design, hopefully helping them improve their live branding."

Bennett and his team at SDW have a wide variety of shows touring the global marketplace in 2015, and they're poised to continue to develop the most creative shows for a wide variety of acts, from established acts to developing artists, building their creative concepts to grow along with their careers, expanding with them to create long- lasting relationships.

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