Vienna, Austria-based technical and production company Concept Solutions this year won the tender to deliver full technical production for the STARnacht series of concerts – three popular music ‘spectacular’ events broadcast live on national TV and staged in exquisite locations nationwide, all in close proximity to water.
Enjoyed by live audiences of around 9,000 a night all up for a great evening, the ORF recording added all the gravity, complexity and excitement of a multi-cam shoot to the production challenges. The picturesque Lake Wörthersee provided a jaw-dropping backdrop to the second set of concerts in the city of Klagenfurt.
This was an excellent space for Concept Solutions to showcase their newly purchased Robe GigaPointe moving lights, which joined several other Robe products from their rental fleet – iFORTES, iPAINTE LTMS, Spiiders and iSpiiders – plus other lights on the rig for this high-octane pop-tastic presentation by numerous stars.
Effects lighting was designed by a combination of programmer / operator Tobias Pehla from Steelblue Studios in Vienna – a specialist in broadcast TV lighting – and Concept Solutions’ production manager and head of lighting, Georg Fuchs, in conjunction with the visions of STARnacht’s creative director, Marvin Dietmann and lead set designer Matthias Kublik.
The special star-shaped stage / roof system was custom-built for this project, which included large quantities of upstage LED screen, together with an LED header.
The GigaPointes had arrived just in time for the first STARnacht shows in Mörbisch at the end of May, and the fixtures were fully incorporated into the lighting design for the second mid-July event in Klagenfurt, explained Tobi, who had a total of 32 GigaPointes on the rig.
Six each were positioned on three raked over stage trusses, totalling 18, with another 6 on top of three side booms each side of stage. The final 8 GigaPointes were upstage, just in front of the band risers on the deck in the front corners of the stage.
This was Tobi’s first time using GigaPointes, and he was impressed!
The first thing he noticed was the “massive output.”
For the Klagenfurt shows, he received most of the lineup and musical details – 27 songs by almost as many performers – very close to the show days, so most of the programming had to be done on site during a very tight timeframe!
This 36-hour marathon session also entailed programming in daylight, where Tobi really “appreciated being able to see the GigaPointe beams clearly.” He added that the extra punch and clarity of the GigaPointe gave it a much-needed edge over the intensity of the LED backdrop.
He had access to one GigaPointe at the start during programming for the first show and liked the combinations that could be created using gobos, prisms and the animation wheel. Although he is not necessarily using these prominently for STARnacht, this layered texturing is something that appeals to his background in circus lighting. “It’s a fixture that facilitates the creation of great-looking bigger pictures,” he noted.
His biggest challenge on this was ensuring that each artist had a distinctive and individual visual look and feel, both live and on camera.
The iSpiider and Spiider are fixtures that he has used regularly in his work, and for the shows at Wörthersee, of the 18 fixtures, 12 were iSpiiders – on the more weather exposed trusses – and 6 were regular Spiiders, all on the three over-stage trusses. They were used for stage washes and back lighting for the band as well as being thrown out into the audience to catch the action for those big sweeping wide shots.
Nine Robe iPAINTE LTMs were positioned on the front truss and used for all the main specials, presenter and band lighting; these were also controlled by key lighting operator, Rene Feizlmayr.
Another single iPAINTE on a stick of vertical truss in the VIP area was utilised for a presenter special position and another 5 x iPAINTE LTMs were rigged at the back of the grandstand, a perfect location for them to wash down and light that section of the audience for the wide cherry picker shots and drone footage.
The iPAINTES were another recent purchase by Concept Solutions. Georg mentioned that they are “excellent all-round” fixtures that “work beautifully” in so many different scenarios, and they are rarely in the warehouse.
A total of 8 iFORTES were positioned four-a-side on two left and right front towers located either side of the front of the grandstand in Klagenfurt, and they did all the main key lighting for the stage, artists and dancers.
All were controlled by a remote follow spot system, together with other lights on the towers, and were under Rene’s jurisdiction, with the operators tucked away backstage and co-ordinated by Martin Staudinger.
Rene also does a lot of TV and live OB work for ORF and other producers, and frequently uses Robe’s FORTE and iFORTE series fixtures for key lighting, picked for all the reasons they are known and loved for in this application – fantastic quality of light, great CRI, flesh tones, colour mixing and general camera-compatibility.
The key lighting department’s main challenge at Klagenfurt was the relatively low height of the front towers, tailored to match the natural aesthetics of the tree line on the house right side, but despite this, the iFORTES worked very well. For the final STARnacht event in Wachau in September, the front towers will move behind the seating tribune and will be higher, so Rene will swap his front keys to iFORTE LTXs for that extra power boost.
The final STARnacht show will also feature some of the 80 new Arianne 6 LED wash fixtures that Concept Solutions has ordered from Robe!
The Klagenfurt site build started about two weeks before the first weekend of festival shows, followed by the second weekend of STARnacht concerts, with the lighting operations overseen by Georg and two lighting systems techs, Sigrid Schmelzer and Marko Zidar.
Owner Florian Weber explained how Robe has been a great investment for the company, and apart from the “excellent and highly reliable” products, he and his team enjoy the “outstanding” service and support from Robe’s Austrian distributor, Signal.
Concept Solutions will celebrate 20 years in 2027. The first Robes to join the company were LEDWash 600s around 2012 / 2013, and they have kept going since then as the different product lines have been rolled out.
Concept Solutions now has over 60 full-time employees and works in all types of live events, shows, concerts and festivals and broadcast events. They have built a great reputation for offering value, imagination and creative flair.
Florian believes in building a great team and an environment where individuals can grow and excel whilst also enjoying the benefits of collaboration.
“We also believe in investing in the best quality kit like Robe, but our team spirit is inspired by the talents, passion and dedication – and diversity – that everyone willingly brings to the equation. People are the essential element here and in all the business we do,” he concludes, looking back over a highly memorable summer evening by the lake with many smiling faces.
Photos by Louise Stickland