Kristiansand based Stage Concept supplied Robe DigitalSpots and moving lights for the Club Salamander stage at the town's 2009 Quart Festival. The venue was a temporary structure built partially over water in the middle of a forested area within the leading Norwegian festival's island site.
With a capacity of 3000 and packed every night for the 5 day event, Club Salamander's line up included leading international DJs like GURU JOSH, Bob Sinclar featuring Big Ali, DJ K-Mixx, Inkfish and many more, so the lighting needed to look spectacular!
The design was a collaboration between Spantax from Robe's Norwegian distributors Live Technic, Rudi Andreas Åvitsland from Stage Concept and Kristoffer Engen from Bærum Lyd, who also supplied LED lighting and the Jands Vista T4 lighting console plus all the audio and DJ kit.
As the exclusive distributor for both Robe and Jands Vista in Norway, Live Technic was asked by Stage Concept to assist in setting up and programing Club Salamander.
The main dancefloor area was under an 11 x 13 metre ground support structure with a grid and several straight pieces of trussing hanging from it at various heights. These were used to rig 6 Robe DigitalSpot 7000 DTs, 6 Robe ColorWash 2500E ATs and 4 ColorSpot 700E ATs.
In addition to the straight truss pieces, there was a 5 metre diameter circular truss suspended in the middle of the ground support, rigged with 12 ColorSpot 700E ATs along with strobes and strip light battens.
Another 6 ColorWash 2500E ATs, 8 ColorSpot 700E ATs, three exterior colour washing fixtures and 60 LED PARs were scattered around the venue to provide mood and environmental lighting. These fixtures were used extensively to uplight the surrounding trees and mountains, creating a truly magical ambience with reflections of the beautiful natural landscape reflected in the water.
The DJ "booth" was a 7 metre wide by 8 metre tall scaffolding structure, completely clad with Chroma-Q ColorWeb that was pixelmapped, and also backlit with another 4 Robe ColorWash 575E AT Zooms. The DJ area was finished off with two 50" plasma screens, fed content from a HippoCritter media server.
All the networking and system setup was undertaken by Spantax from Live Technic, with the DigitalSpots and media servers run via ArtNet directly from the console. The initial setup, layout and DigitalSpot programing was also completed by Spantax.
Lars Erik H. Bratlie - one of the best and most experienced club light jockeys in Norway - operated throughout the event and was in charge of the rest of the programing. He ensured that the lighting blended perfectly with the music, helping to create a fantastic atmosphere and vibe!
Spantax says, "It was impressive to see the ColorWash 2500E ATs output! Even before the sun had set, we could wash a whole mountain in Congo Blue from an 80 metre throw!"
Another useful feature was the RDM (Remote Device Management) capabilities of the Robes, as the rig had to be flown before all the fixtures could be powered.
With a Robe DreamBox to hand, they could connect to the fixtures and set modes and DMX addresses without having to send a climber up the truss, which proved a "perfect" solution. With many fixtures also positioned some distance away in inaccessable places, the DreamBox again came into its own.
Spantax goes on to say, "Apart from the brightness, the Robe fxtures are very responsive and the build quality is unique!" Throughout his 12 years on the road, he's never taken a rig of this size that has been in the air for a week outdoors in an "hostile environment" without a single failure. "This is one of the reasons that an increasing number of companies in Norway are investing in Robe - you simply don't have to deal with the issues of so many of the competitor products".
He has now been using Robe moving lights on all the shows he has worked on for the last couple of years.
For Quart 2009 additional Robe fixtures were sourced through the Robe Rental Network from HSL in the UK and Konsertsystemer A/S, Norway.