Germany - Over 500 Robe moving lights were supplied by three top German rental and technical production companies to four main stages at the 2024 Lollapalooza Berlin festival, organised by Live Nation and staged over two days at the Olympiastadion (Olympic Stadium).
The North and South stages, the Alternative Stage and Perry’s Stage all rocked Robe this year, supplied by TSE (North), the Media Resource Group – MRG (South & Perry’s) and Sound Projekt (Alternative), with around 110,000 music fans attending over the two days of the festival.
FOH crews at these main stages appreciated some special Robe Festival Fridges, supplied by Robe Germany, that were kept fully stocked up with cool water and refreshments for the crews and security staff who were on duty for long hours ensuring everyone safely enjoyed some excellent performances.
The North stage was physically the biggest stage at the festival – four bays deep, one more than the South Stage – with all structures supplied by Stageco.
Peter Weist was TSE’s FOH lighting ‘babysitter’ – he is one of their regular freelancers, and a classic festival production lighting design was presented that would work for all the acts including headliners OneRepublic on Saturday and Sam Smith on Sunday.
The Robe fixtures included Fortes, MegaPointes and Spiiders, all spread out over four trusses, with iFortes on the front truss in the most exposed positions and additional MegaPointes on the floor stretching out along the side wings.
Four RoboSpots were in action at FOH, paired with four iForte LTXs – plus a spare – rigged on an 18m-high tower, with the base stations located stage right by dimmer city. Weist confirms that using remote follow systems provides far better working conditions for the operators than traditional followspots, and it also means the FOH towers can be a bit slimmer and more elegant as there is less weight to support.
They accommodated six bands each day, half of which brought their own operators / lighting directors and the other half of which were lit by Weist who worked alongside a crew of around 15 for the setup and four for the run days.
TSE project manager Thomas Stütz was working on his third Lolla Berlin event, although TSE has serviced the festival right from the start with the inaugural Berlin edition in 2014. He explained that they are free to present a production lighting design that will function for all artists, and they choose to spec a lot of Robe because “everyone is happy using Robe”.
In addition to the top rig, OneRepublic added six MegaPointes under their main riser together with a bunch of strobes.
TSE worked closely with production riggers Big Rig and provided all the trussing and motors they needed to fly lighting, video and audio. Screen Visions were the LED screen vendor on this stage, while TSE also supplied the d&b audio system, together with 12 crew split between sound and visual departments.
The South and North stages were offset by around 145° facing away from one another, both in the main area of the stadium and operated in ‘flip-flop’ style. They were scheduled to allow the audience plenty of time to get from one to the other.
South stage lighting was supplied by Media Resources Group, and included Robe iFortes, BMFLs and Spiiders rigged over the stage, with eight iForte LTXs at FOH for followspots, paired with eight RoboSpot BaseStations under the stage.
“Obviously, we needed the intensity and brightness of these Fortes and BMFLs,” commented Kilian Körber, Media Resources Group’s key account manager on site. The FOH lighting co-ordinator here was Marvin Amstädter.
For the first year ever at Lolla Berlin, Perry’s Stage lighting was also supplied by MRG based in Crailsheim in Baden-Württemberg. Perry’s was located inside the imposing Olympic Stadium building itself, featured EDM and dance music and was headlined by Martin Garrix on the Saturday and The Chainsmokers on Sunday.
34 MegaPointes and 52 Pointes were deployed, joined by 41 Spiiders, four BMFL Blades, 18 Tetra2s and two standard Fortes, which together with other luminaires, were positioned with reference to the headliner’s lighting plots. Lighting on Perry’s stage was looked after by Oliver Reusch.
Sound Projekt from north-east Germany supplied lighting and audio plus stage management services for the Alternative Stage for the fourth year, which hosted a slew of artists including Sam Tompkins, Glass Beams, Christopher and many more. The stage was project-managed for them by Fabian Schwabe and the lighting operator and FOH co-ordinator was Martin Trantow.
The production lighting design was a practical and well-tested festival formula, with 20 MegaPointes for the beams and 24 Spiiders for the washes, all rigged in the three over-stage trusses and two roll-on-roll-off floor trusses to offer additional floor specials from the deck. These were augmented with four iPointes and six iSpiiders in the more exposed positions on the front truss.
