Afrikaans is Groot for Robe
- Details
It featured a lighting co-design by Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier and Chris Bolton of Keystone Productions. Nearly 160 Robe moving lights – including the new Spiiders and Spikies - were included on the rig.
The 12 new Spiiders came straight from customs clearance at OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg to the venue, together with 12 Robe Squares, all part of a larger new Robe investment by rental company, MGG.
MGG was the full production technical supplier for the event which ran for 11 sold-out shows at Moreleta.
Chris & Josh were first asked to design the 2015 edition as a visual team which yielded amazing results and took production values up several notches, so they were asked back this year by Coleske, and again worked closely with MGG general manager, Denzil Smith.
Robe BMFL Blades were chosen as the main profile fixture, 12 on the advanced truss for key lighting and specials with the rest upstage on the mother grid, together with six BMFL WashBeams which were upstage inside one of the circular trusses.
Twenty-four Robe LEDWash 1200s were dotted around the various trusses to provide a base wash across the wide stage and set, with more on the advanced bar for audience illumination, plus another 24 x LEDWash 600s also concentrated on illuminating the audience.
The 36 x Spikies were on the sides in front of the set balconies where they could create piercing back beam looks. “Very impressive” for such a small fixture says Chris.
It was the first time that both Chris and Josh had used Spiiders on a gig, and the 12 fixtures were located in a row just upstage of the pros arch. “They are absolutely mind-blowing,” declared Josh.
Another first was using the Robe Squares on a live show. These were positioned on the balcony fronts both sides of stage, and while they didn’t have so much opportunity to programme and experiment with, as time was so tight, Josh comments that they were “A lot of fun”.
Along the front of the stage in the footlights position were 24 x Robe CycFX8s which were pixel-mapped and integrated into the stage-wide matrix of lighting and video pixels which also included the Squares and 36 x low res video panels.
The Robe picture was completed with four PATT 2013s to fill the space and add some interesting shapes behind a set of moving LED doors upstage, which were part of the set design and used for entrances and exits.
(Jim Evans)
