Robe celebrates Liberty at Colours of Ostrava
- Details
The four-day 2022 event is the largest music festival in the Czech Republic and one of the most popular in Central Europe, presenting multiple stages and a diverse line-up of mixed-genre local and international talent.
Technical production – staging, rigging, lighting, sound, video, audio, stage management and all associated infrastructure – for 18 of the 19 stages was co-ordinated by Prague-based SMART Production, with a team led by Josef ‘Pepa’ Ženíšek, and a Robe moving light rig made impact on the Liberty Stage.
The Liberty Stage was full of Robe moving lights provided by rental specialist AV Media Events, and tech’d and run by Kamil Kruźík and Martin Nakládal.
When choosing their rig, they perused all the lighting specifications – Phoebe Bridges, S+C+A+R+R, Voice of Baceprot, Sam Ryder and many more – and based the rig on their riders, choosing 12 x Robe Esprites, 38 x Spiiders, 17 x MegaPointes, 12 x BMFL Blades and nine Pointes, plus strobes, blinders and MDG hazers for the production lighting rig, complete with grandMA3 light for control.
A relatively modest number of moving lights for a large stage space, but with the flexibility and features of these Robe luminaires plus some imaginative programming, this was enough to produce a series cool and distinctive light shows for all.
Designed to offer the maximum options to as wide a variety of artists as possible, Kamil thinks that Robe is generally “a fantastic choice for festivals and a great solution,” adding that guest LDs are “always happy” to work with the brand.
Martin ran the lights for most artists arriving without their own LDs or operators, including producing a dramatic hi-energy show for all-girl Indonesian rock trio, Voice of Bracepot. He noted that “obviously you need plenty of scope with any festival lighting rig to cover all the different music, but reliability is also key.”
On the Česká Spořitelna stage 12 x Robe Fortes – currently Robe’s highest power TE fixture – were deployed at the top of the stage left and right IMAG screen wings to provide effects and audience lighting.
Additional Robe fixtures were deployed around the site by SMART Productions including LEDBeam 350s for the Globe stage, and IP65 rated iPointes and Anolis ArcPad Xtremes which helped illuminate some of the impressive industrial architecture around this unique site.
Robe’s new Show Truck was parked up in the backstage village and provided a demo area and a VIP chill zone for lighting designers, operators and other crew who had the time to pop in for a chat and some refreshments.
The Česká Spořitelna and Liberty stages featured some gruelling overnight changeovers to accommodate headliners’ own production packages including LED screens and floor lighting, but for Pepa and the team it was exhilarating and fun to be working “properly” live again.
“There is absolutely nothing to beat the adrenaline rush of live performances with a real audience,” he concluded with a large grin.
In addition to Colours, SMART Production is delivering technical production for several other high-profile festivals this summer, including the new Love Stream city festival in the FS Tehelne Pole Stadium, Bratislava, Slovakia, and Europe’s biggest drum ‘n’ bass extravaganza, Let It Roll, again staged at Milovice Airport just outside Prague in the Czech Republic.
