The show was staged at the Incheba Exhibition Centre in Bratislava, produced by live communications agency Forza and broadcast live on TV channel JOJ as well as being enjoyed by a live audience of 3000. Technical production - lights, sound and video - was supplied by Slovakia's biggest rental company, Q-99.
The fixture list included 72 x Robe Robin Pointes, 16 x Robin LEDWash 600s, 10 x LEDWash 1200s, 10 x MMX Spots and 44 x Robin LEDBeam 100s.
Kubanka drew on his vast experience of designing stage lighting and video for televised beauty pageants and took things to a different dimension for this one, creating great aesthetic results that impressed a new production and realisation team.
The brief was to light in a sophisticated and classy manner, the main purpose being to highlight the 12 contestants and let them take centre stage, whilst creating an exciting and vibey atmosphere as a backdrop.
In addition to the competition, there were several live performances including dance troupe The Pastels, Miss Slovakia 2013 Karolina Chomistekova who played a violin piece and popular Czech singers Daniel Kraus and Janek Ledecky.
Daniel Sichman's set design featured a long runway coming out into the audience, and in the roof, the lighting trusses also mimicked this shape.
There was a 43m long back truss, used for all the main contra and effects lights and also for hanging some of the LED screen elements which were also an integral part of the design.
Eighteen metre long trusses were installed above the runway, with 19m ones running down each side of the audience. Above the stage was a 4m diameter trussing circle and above this, a Parasol STAR600 rotating truss system - one of the main lighting centrepieces for this year - and loaded with Pointes and LEDBeam 100s.
Q-99 first saw the STAR600 demonstrated on the Robe stand at Prolight+Sound 2014 - and purchased one shortly after for their hire stock.
On the back truss were 22 x Pointes, six of the LEDWash 1200s and six MMX Spots. The side (audience) trusses were rigged with seven Pointes and eight LEDWash 600s each, and above the catwalk were 30 of the LEDBeam 100s, four MMX Spots and the other four LEDWash 1200s.
Kubanka programmed and operated the lighting on a grandMA2 full size and the LED and effects video was operated by Michal Brna using a grandMA2 light console and an MA VPU. The show was directed by Tomas Eibner and the DoP was Vladimir Durcansky.
(Jim Evans)
