The 2010 Hrachovka Festival, staged near Robe's Czech Republic factory in Valasske Mezirici, featured Robe moving lights on the 2 main stages, supplied by locally based lighting company Stage Plus, run by Tomas Bierza. Robe also sponsored one of the stages making their ROBIN fixtures available for use.
The line up was an eclectic mix of the very best of Czech bands including 2010 Czech & Slovak Superstar winner Martin Chodúr, Airfare, Plastic People of the Universe, Žlutŷ Pes, Electric Mann, PSH, Cocotte Minute and many more, representing a diversity of styles and genres - rock, urban, electro, pop, punk and dance.
Lighting for both Ostravar and Robe Stages was designed by Bierza, and operated by him plus Dalibor Michenka from High Life Touring and Martin Valovy.
The Ostravar Stage had 6 x Robe ColorSpot 2500 and 6 x ColorWash 2500E ATs on its back truss and 4 x ColorWash 2500E ATs on the floor. On the Robe Stage were 4 x Robin 600 and 4 x ROBIN 300 Spots on the back truss, 8 x ColorWash 700E ATs on the front and 4 x ColorWash 700E ATs on the floor.
The rig for the Robe stage was designed about 3 weeks in advance of the event. ROBINS were chosen for their durability in outdoor environments, and their low weight and smaller size meant that lighter duty trussing could be used and less crew were required for the build, saving on overall production costs.
With little preparation and pre-programming time available and so many bands playing, lighting on both stages was designed to be operated "live" in improvised festival style - to great effect.
The biggest challenge of the overall designs was that the lighting was flexible and diverse enough to give each artist an individual look and lightshow, and Bierza says that having all the Robe fixtures was "invaluable" to this process.
He has been using Robe XT and AT Series fixtures extensively on numerous shows and installations for about 8 years, but this presented the first chance to use and see the new ROBIN range in action. He was most impressed with their extreme brightness and large palette of effects.
Afterwards, he stated enthusiastically that his fixture inventory will definitely be expanded to include ROBINS, particularly the 600s, "The weight to size and power ratio is very important to me as I service many small-to-medium sized events - so they will be a good investment," he concludes..
He also comments that the colour range of the ColorSpot 2500s is "Amazing" and of course their power along with the "nice smooth dimming". At Hrachovka, they made full use of the ColorSpot 2500's excellent gobo selection which gave plenty of additional options.
This year was a completely new generation of the festival, presented by Občanskdružení Festival Hrachovka (a not-for-profit association), managed by Bara Černa and Terezie Diehlova, both students of the Faculty of Multimedia & Communication at Thomas Bata Univerzity in Zlín.
The one day event was a great success, attracting about 2000 people from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, who enjoyed beautiful weather, fabulous vibes and some seriously good music.
For more press info. on Robe Lighting, please contact Louise Stickland on +44 (0)1865 202679/+44 (0)7831 329888 or Email ‘[email protected]'. For more product and general info, check www.robe.cz or call + 420 571 751 510.