Over 250 Robe moving lights – 264 to be precise – including 54 of the brand’s new laser-source GigaPointes – took center stage at ULTRA Europe 2026, assisting the spectacular visual experience across the festival's Main and RESISTANCE stages in Split, Croatia, ensuring the adrenaline pumped and the serotonin levels peaked in Park Mladeži for three days in July.
A star-studded lineup matched the intensity of the hot weather and included Calvin Harris, John Summit, Martin Garrix, Hardwell, DJ Snake, Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, CamelPhat, Jamie Jones, Adam Beyer, Oliver Heldens, Nico Moreno, Subtronics, Maddix and many more who thrilled up to 50,000 Ultranauts from all over the world each day.
Creative Production
ULTRA Europe’s Main Stage production design is created by Richard Milstein and Ray Steinman, with Ray also taking on the roles of production manager and executive producer, working closely with MOJO Rental Southeast Europe, led by Zoran Biškupić and Sven Grbec, who were responsible for the festival's overall technical production and infrastructure.
MOJO supplied the equipment, crew and technical support, including an extensive selection of Robe fixtures, and for both Main and RESISTANCE Stage lighting, received significant support from its project partner, Event Lighting from Slovenia, led on site by Uroš Faganelj.
The Main Stage house lighting rig this year included 12 x Robe GigaPointes, 52 x FORTES – comprising 44 standard FORTES and 8 x iFORTES, 60 x Spiiders and 98 x MegaPointes.
The house lighting is designed, programmed and co-ordinated by Alex “Junior” Cerio of JuniorCorp. He also co-ordinates all the FOH logistics and guest LDs, ensuring they receive all the pre-viz time needed and that their showfiles are primed, ready and waiting for when their artist takes to the stage.
RESISTANCE featured 42 x GigaPointes on a rig designed by Serafin Gonzalez, and these were scattered around the over-audience trusses traversing the length of the room and helped keep the rhythms pumping and the energy surging from front to back!
Tough Environment
As one of Europe's largest electronic music festivals, ULTRA Europe presents one of the industry's toughest environments for lighting technology, demanding long operating hours, changeable weather conditions and broadcast-quality performance across multiple stages.
This is precisely why using a brand like Robe is a huge benefit to festivals, as the products are known for their general reliability, speed of operation, which is ideal for EDM-style operation, and the IP rated ranges are truly weather-resistant. That is in addition to offering a near infinite array of creative features.
Epic Design
ULTRA events are known for their spectacular high-tech geometric visual designs, which usually include an epic wide cinematic look for the Main Stage with lots of LED, and this year was no exception, with over 600 square meters of screen comprising diamond shapes, diagonal slices and chevrons on the Main Stage. The screen, trussing and rigging together with crew for all related technical disciplines were supplied by MOJO.
The Main Stage was divided into three sections – center plus left and right wings – with the DJ booth in the middle, surrounded by all the LED and lighting which helped move the energy off the stage and right to the back of the field.
As you can imagine, LDs this year were super excited to get hands-on with Robe’s new GigaPointes.
Strategic GigaPointe Placement
The 12 x Main Stage GigaPointes were extremely strategically placed along the low corners of the two wings, on the bottom edges of the lowest segments of LED screen.
This made sense for the wide camera shots from the booms in the field, which were positioned just in front each side, so each time the cranes swung by, a combined force of GigaPointe and MegaPointe beams punched through the shots.
This year, 90% of the Main Stage DJs and artists rocked up with their own creative teams to run their own lighting and video shows.
Giga Comments
Alessandro Scotellaro, ULTRA Europe’s laserist from Effetto Laser, Milan, who also worked alongside Junior as lighting programmer/operator for Main Stage, reckons the “GigaPointe is a great upgrade – the beam is VERY uniform and even, and the colors are super bright!”
Fabian Fisniku, LD for Martin Garrix, loves the GigaPointe beam shaper function: “Overall, it’s been developed so it is very nice to program, using it in conjunction with MegaPointes is convenient and user-friendly from a console perspective.”
Matthew Dean from So Far So Good Studio and LD for German “Clouds” DJ BUNT was delighted to see that GigaPointe “has all the punch and speed of MegaPointe while being a next-generation fixture.” He is still always happy to see MegaPointes on site and looks forward to “getting to know the GigaPointe in the same way.”
Jade Fraser of 1826 Studio and LD for Calvin Harris thinks that the GigaPointe “is great, a super impressive output, and still such a versatile fixture with good optics and colors.”
Junior himself observed that EDM festival productions are hard on all fixtures, and “GigaPointe does a brilliant job of dealing with 10 or more LDs, searing heat and sometimes torrents of rain on the same day … whilst delivering a great quality of output!”
He added that they look fantastic on camera and don’t break after 12 or 14 hours of continuous hammering at 128 BPM! He highlighted the importance of using a broadcast/television/camera-conscious laser-source engine with optics that provide “rich, wonderful colors that work equally well live and on screen.”
ULTRA has its own local media team as well as a live broadcast team, due to the fact that the event is streamed, so cameras are critical from all perspectives, including the fact that in reality everyone in the audience has a smartphone!
GigaPointes Leading the Resistance
Serafin Gonzalez, global LD for RESISTANCE, with 42 on his stage had more GigaPointe experience than anyone at ULTRA Europe 2026. He was impressed with how “well balanced and uniform the output is across multiple fixtures, including at low intensities,” also noting how well the colors blend and mix. “Even in the darker shades, they are capable of well-defined movements, particularly at high speeds!”
The GigaPointes were also great for cutting through the 200 square meters of LED screen in RESISTANCE.
And the positive feedback continued from the crew, with Luka Nabergoj & Andrej Testen (FOH lead & lead techs) saying, “On a production like ULTRA Europe, reliability is everything. GigaPointe proved to be a reliable part of the overall lighting system throughout the event.”
Main Considerations
This year, Robe’s FORTE was chosen for all the Main Stage key lights and specials – with a concentration of them on five chevron-shaped trusses in the middle of the central section.
Four of the eight iFORTES were upstage on flightcases providing celestial DJ lighting with the other four rigged high up in mirroring positions on a downstage centre truss – for direct keys/DJ specials. This position was also one of the most exposed positions to the elements, so the IP rated fixture was essential there.
As Junior noted, IP rated fixtures are now essential for any outdoor event during summer in Europe, as the weather patterns are so erratic.
He underlines how the high brightness of the FORTES and iFORTES was very much needed for a stage like this, as they hold their own impressively against the vastness of LED screen … plus all the Spiider wash beams.
And talking Spiiders, for Junior, they are a workhorse fixture that LDs are “always happy” to work with. He personally specifies and uses them on numerous projects.
Completing the Robe products on the 2026 Main Stage were 98 x MegaPointes, which were still hugely popular and highly effective, especially for electronic events like RESISTANCE worldwide due to their flexibility and brightness. They were the spot / profile fixture covering all the left and right wing sections this year.
“People still love MegaPointes and always will,” elucidated Junior, adding that from his festival LD perspective, they are also robust and rarely break or need any maintenance time, which is exactly what you need.
Great Teamwork
He has been working with ULTRA Europe for over 10 years and enjoys the great teamwork, camaraderie and synergy of so many technical and creative disciplines combining to produce a truly world-class festival experience for music fans.
Photos by Andro Tasovac, Damira Kalajzic, Julien Duval, @justfabi and Luka Brajkovic