Robe helps Hecht energise Hallenstadion
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Show and lighting designer Roger Staub was asked to create a big, vibrant and memorable show to end their current touring cycle riding high on their chart-topping third studio album Oh Boy and assisting him to make a massive impact were 98 Robe MegaPointes and 60 Pointes.
Roger is also a video content creator and his elegant design combined the media of lighting and video, proportionately putting the band right at the centre of the action on a large (18 x 8m) semi-transparent LED screen.
Visually, Roger wanted to create simple and powerful statements and a clean performance space. To keep focus on the band, he proposed the central upstage screen instead of standard left and right IMAGs as one of his starting points.
The concert was also shot for a DVD / documentary film with 15 cameras in total, 11 of which were available for a lively IMAG mix which was cut by John Allen of Live Image.
In addition to the Pointes and MegaPointes, there was a matrix of 84 LED battens around and behind the LED screen, and a scattering of strobes.
He relied on the full multi-functionality of the MegaPointes in particular to provide his beam, spot and wash effects. Roger had used MegaPointes before, but primarily in festival scenarios, so this was the first show with them as the main fixture.
Seventy-two MegaPointes were used around and below the screen, rigged on a series of trusses hung below one another, with 20 x Pointes behind the LED screen, blasting through.
Ten MegaPointes circled the edges of the B-Stage at the end of an 18m runway from the stage that got the band right in among their fans, with another six for side lights shooting across the downstage edge of the main stage. The remaining 10 were on the front truss for front light, keys and specials.
Forty Pointes were positioned around the arena on a perimeter truss for lighting the audience along with some LED spheres and LED battens.
A grandMA3 network was used for control with the main lighting console programmed and operated by lighting director Mathias Peter, and additional programming from Christian Crego.
All the lighting kit was supplied to the production by Habegger AG - project managed for them by Thomas Herdener - with some elements sourced from Niclen. The Coda-based audio system was supplied by Schallwerk Audiotechnik, with engineer Stefan Zumstein at FOH.
(Jim Evans)
