Hog the Spotlight: Richard Larkum

Lighting designer Richard Larkum has spent nearly two decades touring the world with Hog consoles. From his early days on the Hog IPC, to taking the new Stage Hog on tour with Biffy Clyro, his workflow has evolved in tandem with the platform.

For a lighting designer, the console they program on often becomes an extension of themselves. Over years of touring, building cues, and adapting to different rigs in different venues, working on a specific desk can feel like second nature. For Richard Larkum, this couldn’t be more true.

Finding the Right Desk

Richard’s story with Hog began over 20 years ago, as he was starting to break into arena shows and larger concert venues. Around that time, he felt that the consoles he had been using weren’t powerful enough to handle the bigger shows he was beginning to take on. To decide on his next desk, Richard did a shoot-out with all the major consoles of the time as well as a soon-to-be-released beta console.

Ultimately, Richard would settle on a Hog IPC in Hog 2 mode as his new desk. For Richard, the decision came down to the fact that Hog 2 felt intuitive and well-suited to how his brain worked, like something he could mold to fit his workflow. This choice would kick off a 20-year relationship that took him and his Hog desks all over the globe on tours with groups like Sleep Token, Biffy Clyro, Kaiser Chiefs, The Prodigy, Levellers, and countless others.

Building a Workflow

Richard would stay on the Hog IPC through Hog 2 and Hog 3 modes, before moving to the Full Boar 3, gradually turning the desk into an extension of himself. That was until 2013, when the full-size Hog 4 console dropped. This would serve him for nine dutiful years through long prep nights, global tours, and a worldwide pandemic.

Until 2022, Richard had never owned his own console, but with COVID restrictions on travel lifting and every band wanting to tour, he made the decision to buy his first console. He ultimately settled on two Road Hog 4s, each paired with an extra 21.5” monitor, greatly increasing the available workspace without sacrificing the buttons, faders, and encoders he had grown accustomed to.    

Around that same time, Richard was on a run of shows in the United States using house rigs and consoles. Over the course of this tour, Richard noticed how the smaller to mid-size venues such as the House of Blues had upgraded their lighting rigs since his last visit across the pond. Setups in the past that used to be just a handful of PAR cans were now equipped with moving lights capable of supporting a more robust show.

This realization sparked the idea of a compact Hog setup for Richard, that he could easily take on the road when bringing his Road Hog setup was not feasible. To accomplish this, Richard decided on a Hoglet, running via a HPU Processing Unit, and a 21.5-inch monitor.

This entire rig fits in a Peli case and weighs just 28kg, meaning it is able to travel with him by train, plane, and everything in between. According to Richard, this portability has made the Hoglet setup one of his favorite Hog configurations, especially as it provides 64 universes straight from the console.

Taking Stage Hog on Tour

In November 2025, Richard was given the opportunity to beta-test the new Stage Hog, which he outfitted with two 24-inch monitors and immediately put to the test. Richard’s first run of shows on the Stage Hog was a 27-date UK / European tour with Scottish rock band Biffy Clyro, including stops in Glasgow, Berlin, London, and Amsterdam.

The tour presented a variety of programming challenges, from full arena shows to a floor system with house rigs and everything in between. Despite moving to a new generation of hardware after more than a decade on Hog 4, the transition was smooth, according to Richard. “The software is familiar enough that you look at it, and it still feels comfortable, but there are so many new things to get excited about—the dashboards are an especially nice addition.”

One of Richard’s main reasons for initially switching to Hog was the screen real estate and feedback it provided—something he remains a stickler for. Stage Hog's dashboard displays act as an extension of the console's controls, freeing up space on the 24-inch monitors Richard paired with the desk, allowing him to customize his work area even more than before.

Diving further into what has kept him on the Hog platform, from the Hog 2 days all the way through to the newest hardware with the Stage Hog, Richard praised the console’s ease of use. “I’m a lighting designer, not a software programmer,” he says “The Hog allows me to easily make lights flash how I want them to flash – that’s what I want, and what a Hog has always done.”

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