Robe moving lights were also used for the high energy Opening Ceremony (OC) spectacular show designed by Milan 'Mejla' Fronek from Lightneq, which prepared everyone for plenty of on-court excitement to follow. The installation and technical support was co-ordinated by Prague-based AV Media.
Milan has created high impact lighting schemes for numerous other top sporting events including the World Ice Hockey Championships held in the Czech Republic in May, the Sochi Olympic Park installation at Letna Park, Prague, during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and for the award-winning Czech House during the 2012 London Olympics.
For the Fed Cup final, Milan had some of Robe's newest fixtures at his fingertips including 26 x BMFLs - 12 Blades and 14 Spots; 16 x LEDBeam 1000s; 12 x Pointes; 10 of the brand new LED Strobes; five Squares - making their live debut; 4 x CitySkape Xtreme LED floods and two CycFX8s.
These were arranged on four trusses flown around the O2 Arena's central LED display cube For the opening ceremony these production trusses were lowered in to a trim height of 12m above the playing area below.
The BMFL Blades were the stars of the intense two-minute opening show! Milan used them to map and project a tennis court created from light onto the area below, with gobos dividing it up with the line markings.
Also, with precision use of the BMFL Blades' framing shutters and gobos, the lights mimicked a computer generated tennis match for a section of the show which really got the audience on their feet.
The tennis game idea was first initiated by the Robe's own lighting project manager for the event, Petr Kolmacka. Other elements of the show included the morphing of the three colours making up both the Czech and Russian flags combined with strobe effects and the rainbow colours on the tennis court to symbolise peace and tolerance.
The rest of the lights were used for general lighting during the OC on the play area and around the audience, ramping up the drama as a rousing music track blasting out through the PA system.
The lightshow matched the high quality of tennis played throughout the weekend - where the results all hung on the final doubles game on Sunday in which Karolina Pliskova and Barbora Strycova beat the Russian pair of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Elena Vesnina to a 'roof-lifting' ecstatic reaction from the home crowd.
Says Robe's CEO Josef Valchar, "We are all so proud to support our truly world class Czech women's tennis team, and it was a great honour to be in Prague and witness the final stage of this achievement first hand."
(Jim Evans)
