Robe enjoys Weeknd at Lollapalooza Berlin
- Details
German rental company TSE - also based in Berlin - supplied lighting and sound for Mainstage 1, complete with a full Robe moving light rig with over 100 fixtures including BMFLs, Spiiders, Pointes and MegaPointes.
For the Weeknd’s Saturday night headlining set, they boosted the Robe count with a specials package of another 174 Robes - almost double the amount of lights in the production rig - part of an eye-catching design by LeRoy Bennett which was overseen and operated by Steven Mills.
Heading up the 35-person TSE team on site was Marcel Kuch. The company has supplied lighting and audio to the main stage since Lolla Berlin started in 2015, and Marcel has also been involved for all that time.
He specified Robe for Mainstage 1’s production lighting design for all the reasons that it has become such a popular festival choice, “The reliability, brightness and versatility of the fixtures, plus the fact that international LDs, lighting directors and operators are all happy to work with Robe” he stated.
The production rig installed in the StageCo structure was very straightforward, providing three trusses of wash, spot and beam lights as a dynamic and flexible rig for all acts to use including The Weeknd and Sunday night headliners, Kraftwerk, who closed the 2018 event.
The Spiiders were distributed between the floor and the roof. The 12 x MegaPointes were all on the floor, while the BMFLs and Pointes were deployed in the roof.
The Weeknd’s substantial extras package comprised 27 x 6m runs of trusses, strapped together in nine sections - each one comprising three truss sections and measuring 1.8m wide.
These ‘wedges’ were each loaded with alternating rows of Pointes and strobes as well as a fog machine and fans and weighed 1 tonne each! They were transported to site in three trucks.
Upstage of the wedges, a row of 24 x Robe BMFL WashBeams was positioned to blast through the metalwork, and two downstage left and right dollies provided low level front light positions ideal for highlighting the artist, each loaded with six BMFL Blades.
“It’s definitely the biggest specials package we have ever handled at a festival” confirmed Marcel, “and this was the big physical and logistical challenge”.
Kraftwerk’s extras were a little more minimal - just 18 x BMFL Blades to complement their renowned projection-heavy performance.
(Jim Evans)
