Harbour Club Theatre has appetite for Robe
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Lighting for this enew venue has been designed by Benny La Maitre, who put 24 Robe T1 Profiles, 28 LEDBeam 350s and six Spiider wash beam moving lights at the centre of the rig.
This is part of an overall production design encompassing audio, video, staging, pyro and SFX, all planned and co-ordinated by The Harbour Club technical manager, Bob Nieuwland, who started the design process by drawing up the set in WYSIWYG. He then asked Benny onboard to fine-tune the details which included the swapping of some lighting fixtures once the final look of the set was established.
The lighting was delivered via Rotterdam-based Peitsman Licht en Geluid (Peitsman Lighting & Sound) headed by Hans Peitsman, one of several companies asked to quote on supplying a technical package that will include ongoing support, based on a comprehensive brief developed by Bob for The Harbour Club Theatre.
Bob has been working for The Harbour Club for several years, looking after all their technical and production aspects, so when the theatre project re-energised as Covid restrictions were gradually lifted (the initial venue / show ideas were germinating before 2020), he asked Benny onboard to create an appropriate lighting design.
In addition to staging their own world-class productions, the location of The Harbour Club Theatre is available for select private hires and business events for which there’s already a queue.
Bob and Benny were both instrumental in specifying Robe for the moving lights, together with a list of lighting ‘must-haves’.
These included compact fixtures as the headroom above the stage to the LX bars is tight and consequently the lights had to be quiet as well as camera-friendly for recording or streaming. In keeping with The Harbour Club’s vision, the technical design demanded premium brands, so Robe was a great fit, together with the L-Acoustics system and audio design by Jeroen ten Brinke.
“Flexibility had to be at the heart of the lighting system, as the needs for the show and also the room architecture are diverse and can and do change daily, often at the last minute,” explained Benny, adding that he also wanted to keep the design ‘clean’ with just a few key types of multi-functional signature fixtures. These also had to be LED.
Robe’s T1 Profiles were chosen for their theatre features, compact size, colours, and silent operation and are used for all the base front and back lighting.
The LEDBeam 350s are for side lighting, positions where they needed a small bright light with a quiet zoom. Originally the plan was to have Robe’s tiny LEDBeam 150s in these positions, but as the 350 version was launched earlier in 2021, these were swapped for the more powerful lights.
The Spiiders are currently being used as a flexible floor package which can also be rigged over the stage if required. All lighting is run from a grandMA3 console.
