Robe lights Belters Only Dublin spectacular
- Details
David and the team have been working with the artists for the last year and designed the floor lighting package for their 2023 festival appearances. Their brief for the 3Arena show was to make it big, bold, and breathtaking visually, helping pump the energy and excitement everywhere in the room - from the stage to the back of the auditorium.
On the lighting plot were over 100 Robe moving lights - 52 Robe Tetra2’s, 12 TetraX’s and 32 MegaPointes - comprising most of the moving lights, joined by strobes, some other profile moving lights and 10 30W lasers.
The lighting design was based on a 10m diameter circular truss centrepiece, inspired by the ‘circle of life’ in the musical duo’s logo, which was flown vertically and prominently in front of a large LED screen masked into a spherical shape. The DJ booth sat on a riser downstage of both these elements.
Four two-metre upright truss sections in front of the riser were rigged with the 12 TetraXs, providing whizzy and crazy effects to fill the space where there was no screen and for dramatic back lighting for guest vocalists and dancers using the space in front to perform.
Twenty-eight Tetra2s were rigged around the perimeter of the large circle. More were on four floor-mounted vertical truss towers measuring 3m and 6m respectively and positioned left and right of the circle at different depths.
The entire lighting design was carefully calculated to maximise the depth of the stage space.
The balance of the Tetra2s was distributed between two horizontal 3m truss sections also downstage left and right, with two fixtures on the front rail and three on the back of each truss section.
A 6m truss circle flown directly above the DJ riser was rigged with 12 MegaPointes, with another six of Robe’s omnipresent and popular original multi-purpose moving spot light on the two 6m vertical towers. As with the Tetras, these were positioned to achieve as many dynamic angles as possible.
“We wanted the Terta2s specifically to frame the large circle which was the epicentre of the action and the stage design,” explained David. “The idea was to make this circle pop out into the audience in a series of completely unexpected ways.”
David likes the crispness, tightness, and definition of the Tetra2 optics, and how the lightsource can become a dense wave of light blasting out into the audience if used
in conjunction with properly managed haze. “Mastering the atmospherics is key to getting this style of lighting design looking properly amazing,” he noted.
The get-in was 6am for 6pm doors, and the lighting installation was coordinated on-site by chief lighting tech, Emmet O’Donnell and the Spectrum team.
An Avolites Arena was used for lighting control, which David commented was an “excellent choice” as this show involved a high degree of busking and improvisational operation together with some timecoded moments.
Spectrum also supplied the LED screens and a d & b sound system, together with a substantial amount of pyro, SFX - flames and CO2 jets - as well as lasers, while Shane Fogarty and the gang from Emerald Isle Rigging worked tirelessly to get everything in the air in time.
