Robe Lighting on Counter-Strike Playoff, Budapest

	A portion of the Spikies were positioned around the main video screens to create additional depth, with others in positions at either end of the stage, again to increase the volume of this space. Photo: Louise Stickland

More than 20,000 fans of the video game Counter-Strike attended a final playoff of the StarLadder CS2 Major at the MVM Dome in Budapest, Hungary. Lighting for the event was designed by Oleksandr Manzenko, who used nearly 190 Robe moving lights 17 iBOLTS, 116 Megaphones, 48 Spikies, and a six-way RoboSpot system using BMFL WashBeams.

The project's approximately 1,000 lighting fixtures were supplied by Alight Production Group, based in Warsaw, Poland, headed by Volodymyr Andrusyshyn.

Manzenko lit the StarLadder tournaments and such events. When he came on board the Budapest Major team, the initial stage and production lighting setup was already developed by Alight Production Group's Kyrylo Lobasiev and Evgen Tsibinogin, together with the industrial cube structure above the stage, supplied by StarLadder's creative team.

This was a large rectangular set piece in the roof, constructed from trussing, which also provided technical positions. Most of the lighting units were rigged around all four sides of the set, which was draped and featured four large video screens, one hung on each of the four sides for the 360-degree audience.

Lighting Esports includes showy effects when the teams are entering or collecting the trophy. During the games, wins, knockouts, explosions, and other effects are often accented. The key goal, however, is maintaining an atmosphere; done correctly, audience reactions add enormously to the event's energy.

The players must be perfectly key-lit for cameras as they are on screen, so all the right angles must be maximized unobtrusively. The idea of having intense rays of lighting shooting along the lines of the scenic steel beams during the buildups and big lighting crescendos came from Lobasiev and Tsibinogin, who added the iBOLT to accent the structural lines, enhancing the edges of the cube. As a safety precaution, the audience areas where the iBOLT beams shone were intentionally left empty, so no one would be in the beam path.

The BMFL WashBeams running on the RoboSpot system were rigged in optimal truss positions to illuminate the players during entrances and exits. The BaseStations were positioned on the top tier of the arena, looking down on all the action.

The MegaPointes were dotted all over the rig, making up the over-stage structure, and were used extensively to blast the audience space with beams and effects throughout the event, as well as to light the set. They were picked for their "huge versatility and scope" as a general-purpose workhorse luminaire.

A portion of the Spikies were positioned around the main video screens to create additional depth, with others in positions at either end of the stage, again to increase the volume of this space. In these positions, they were great for filling back-of-camera shots for a percussionist and dancers who performed during the intros.

A single Spikie rigged on one of the vomitory entrances was positioned to illuminate the coveted trophy as it sat onstage.

Manzenko, based in Kyiv, Ukraine, could not be on-site to realize his design. Instead, he collaborated closely with freelance programmer/operator Stanislav Rusakov, who was the acting lighting director on site, and with Lobasiev and Tsibinogin. All the previsualization was completed in Kyiv; once the Alight team was on-site, communication continued via phone and VC to ensure everything looked spot on.

A major difference between a standard event and an Esports environment is that the pace and rhythm of production is much faster. Formats and stage setups will frequently change, demanding modular, cleaner show file structures, quick implementation, and close coordination with the video, content, and games logic teams.

Lobasiev was also the lighting crew chief on-site, working with a team of 12 and three trucks of lights.

The project was overseen for Alight Production Group by Andrusyshyn, who comments, "The MVM Dome is a great venue in which to work -- excellent production facilities, nice and warm, and the house crew are highly skilled and very professional! It was a great honour and experience for all of us to be a part of the large team delivering production for this high-profile event."