Go Behind Scenes Of ADJ’s Show-Stopping LDI 2025 Lightshow With LD Steve Kosiba

ADJ celebrated its 40th anniversary at LDI 2025 in Las Vegas, pulling out all the stops by debuting eight exciting new lighting fixtures and presenting an awe-inspiring lightshow to a soundtrack showcasing the biggest hits of the past four decades. Now in its third year under the creative direction of renowned concert lighting designer Steve Kosiba, the fast-paced show highlighted both the newly launched luminaires and a selection of ADJ’s most popular existing products. In this behind-the-scenes feature, Steve offers insight into the creative process and highlights the fixtures that played a central role in this year’s presentation.

Building on the momentum of the previous two years, ADJ’s Sales Director Alfred Gonzales once again invited Steve Kosiba to return as the designer and programmer for the booth’s signature lightshow. With a strong understanding of the brand and a clear vision for how to elevate the experience year after year, Steve embraced the challenge of refining and expanding the concept for its third outing.

A partner at New Jersey–based concert lighting specialists Squeek Lights, Steve brings extensive real-world production experience to every project. His work spans lighting design and programming for many concerts and high-profile private events, engineering custom touring deck packages, and hands-on production management. His background includes roles with Starlite Productions, Frost Productions NY, and a host of concert and event venues — experience that continues to inform the polished, performance-driven approach seen in ADJ’s LDI showcase.

“I started the design process this year thinking about all the products I needed to showcase!” explains Steve. “Not only did we have eight new product debuts, there were other fixtures that launched at LDI last year, but we only had a few fixtures available, so I wanted them to also have the chance to shine, deployed in multiples. There's a lot of different fixture types in this rig, which I think was my main challenge – to come up with something coherent but that also showed the unique potential of each fixture.”

Steve worked in collaboration with ADJ’s in-house team to develop the booth design, including ADJ Group Tradeshow Manager, Trevor Yagen, and ADJ Lighting Tradeshow Manager, Charlotte Wester. To build the rig on site, Trevor and Charlotte once again worked with Stage-Tech, based in Santa Fe Springs, CA. The production company’s professional team pre-rigged the trusses and then efficiently assembled them on site ready for Steve to finalize the programming of the time-coded lightshow using an NX4 console from ADJ’s sister company Obsidian Control Systems. 

The creative spark which started the development process for this year’s lightshow came from ADJ’s new Technical Product Specialist, Jeffrey Yukelson, who took up the role at the beginning of the year. He suggested highlighting ADJ’s milestone of 40 years in business by synchronizing the lightshow to a medley of tracks spanning the past four decades. This idea was embraced by ADJ’s National Sales Manager, Edgar Bernal, who just happens to be a two-time National US DMC DJ Champion under the moniker DJ Etronik. Edgar produced a 6-minute audio and video mash-up of iconic tracks – spanning multiple genres – from the last forty years, which provided the lightshow’s soundtrack.

“The audio and video montage Edgar created was fantastic, but also posed a challenge in that this was a very face-paced show with each track playing for just a few seconds,” explains Steve. “I had to come up with a huge quantity of different looks, each inspired by the relevant song. This meant quite a few retro looks were required, so I was glad to have the newly updated PAR Z300 3K LED-powered par fixtures in the rig. I was also able to make use of the brand-new Jolt MFX 360, which is a really versatile fixture that I positioned front and center in the ceiling of the booth. Its Vintage side was perfect for generating throwback looks but then I could flip it over almost instantly to its Jolt side to output modern effects.”

Another new fixture making its debut at LDI 2025 was the Hydro Beam CMY. This powerful, IP65-rated beam fixture combines CMY color mixing, precision optics, and wireless control to deliver razor-sharp aerial effects with reliability in any environment, indoors or out. To showcase this fixture’s impressive throw, Steve positioned nine of the units upstage, at the very top of the booth, allowing for impactful fan effects projecting out into the aisle.

“Of the newly launched fixtures, the stand out for me has to be the Focus CMY Compact,” enthuses Steve. “I just love that light! The GOBO selection is great, the CMY color mixing is well implemented, and its output is truly amazing for its size — there’s really nothing I don’t like about that fixture. It’s one of those lights that is more impressive when you get to use it than it looks on paper.”

A much anticipated LDI 2025 debut was the Protégé Series, ADJ’s next generation of LED-powered moving head spot fixtures. Each model is packed with features, including onboard Aria X2 wireless and lightning-fast 3-phase motors with continuous pan rotation. Steve positioned a line of the compact Protégé XS model — which functions interchangeably as a beam, spot or wash and delivers up to 9,800 lumens of output — along the top of the main LED screen at the back of the booth. Meanwhile the midsize Protégé XM — offering 16,000 lumens of output — and the flagship Protégé XL — boasting 20,000 lumens of output — took center stage on the booth’s flown rig.

“I was pleased to have 16 of the new Vizi Xtreme units at the back of the booth, as it’s a winner for sure,” comments Steve. “That thing is wicked fast. It’s also super small but still has amazing output. The LED ring is really cool too. Same thing with the Vizi FX7, which I had grouped on GT trusses and on the triangle array of DuraTruss Quick Grids handing upstage. Those two fixtures really go hand in hand as a smaller and a bigger counterpart to the same concept with those lime-enhanced 60-Watt RGBL LEDs generating really nice whites as well as a lot of colors you can't get out of an RGBW system.”

In addition to the new product launches, Steve’s lightshow also highlighted a number of other recently-released new products that are already shipping. In particular, the Vizi Pix Z19 was a star of the show. This versatile LED wash-zoom combines 19 x 30-Watt primary RGBL LEDs with vibrant background glow LEDs and an eye-catching outer LED ring to deliver huge creative potential.

“With the ground-stacked rig at the back of the booth I really wanted to showcase some of ADJ’s existing production ready fixtures,” adds Steve. “So, we had Jolt Bar FXIP and 40 HEX Panel IP alongside Hydro Flex L7 and Hydro Flex L19, which are all tried and tested products that are really at home in a larger production company’s rental inventory.”

A significant launch at last year’s LDI was the Vintage Series, which offers atmospheric retro effects from modern LED-powered decorative fixtures. Two models — the octagonal Vintage X and rectangular Vintage Bar — are available, and both were showcased in multiples at LDI 2025. Featuring powerful warm white blinder LEDs combined with RGB-illuminated background reflectors, they can generate a wide variety of eye-catching visual effects. These fixtures shared blinder duty within the lightshow with another fixture launched at LDI 2024, the Encore DBX.

“I think the Encore DBX is simply the best blinder on the market right now,” states Steve. “ADJ really did a great job with balancing the LED power. It's biased towards warm white and it’s a very nice warm white. If you put the white and amber chips at full, you get a really nice golden warm light. But on top of that, you have the option of full color mixing and then the background reflector with the extra glow LEDs. Before I saw it in person, I thought that was gonna be a little chintzy. But as soon as I saw it for myself, I was sold, that reflector glow is a really cool extra element. They are also really robust and well-designed units that click together really easily to make a four-cell, or eight-cell blinder, or you can align them horizontally, whatever you want to do. And with the Omega bracket right on the back, as an alternative to the bracket, you can really hang them any way you want.”

Bringing together four decades of musical history, cutting-edge fixture innovation, and a meticulously crafted design, ADJ’s LDI 2025 lightshow stood as a powerful statement of both celebration and evolution. Under Steve Kosiba’s experienced and imaginative direction, the booth became more than a product showcase — it was a high-energy performance that demonstrated how ADJ’s newest and most trusted fixtures work together in real-world production scenarios. The result was a cohesive, fast-moving spectacle that honored the brand’s 40-year legacy while clearly signaling its forward-looking vision, leaving attendees with a vivid impression of ADJ’s creative ambition and technical capability.

While it undoubtedly had to be seen in person to be fully appreciated, if you missed the show, you can experience the next best thing by watching the video below which captures the whole thing from start to finish:

Lighting Designer
Steve Kosiba

Technical Product Specialist
Jeffrey Yukelson

Music Production
Edgar Bernal

Trade Show Managers
Trevor Yagen and Charlotte Wester

Production Company
Stage-Tech
www.stage-tech.com

Photography
Eddie Short

Fixture List
28 x Jolt Bar FXIP
24 x Hydro Flex L7
21 x Focus CMY Compact
20 x 40 Hex Panel IP
16 x Vizi FX7
16 x Vizi Xtreme
16 x Vizi Pix Z19
16 x Par Z300 RGBA
16 x Par Z300 3K
13 x Jolt MFX 360
12 x Vintage X
12 x ElectraPix Bar 16
10 x Protégé XM
10 x Protégé XS
10 x Jolt Panel FX2
10 x Encore DBX
10 x Hydro Beam CMY
8 x Protégé XL
8 x Focus Spot 7Z
8 x Vizi Beam RX2
6 x Focus Profile
4 x Vintage Bar
4 x Hydro Flex L19
36 x Eliminator Elektron Bar FX