Robe Gear Specified for De Oosterpoort Venue Spot is an umbrella organization for music productions staged at two venues in the city of Groningen, The Netherlands: De Oosterpoort and the municipality's main theatre, Stadsschouwburg. Since 1973, De Oosterpoort, the most important music venue in the area, has been the home of the Noord Nederlands Orkest and the four-day Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) festival, plus other shows, productions, and business events. Last year, Oosterpoort's first Robe moving lights arrived as part of an upgrade to start replacing its old halogen stock with LED luminaires;all moving lights are now LED-based. The venue has three halls. The Grote Zaal (Main Hall) can accommodate 1,850 standing and 1,150 seated, the Kleine Zaal (Small Hall) has a capacity of 750 standing and 450 seated, and the Binnenzaal (inside hall) has 300 standing only. Last year, the Main and Small Halls received a total of 32 new Robe FORTES fitted with the HCF (high color fidelity) engine and 32 Spiider LED wash beams to enrich their palette of creative lighting tools. "Every seven years or so, we look at upgrading to stay relevant and in line with the most appropriate tech available," explains Spot lighting designer Henk Geuzinge. The Binnenzaal hosts a diverse range of concerts and is known for its great atmosphere, which is now boosted with the arrival of 14 Robe PAINTES and eight LEDBeam 350 moving lights. With the budget in mind, Guezinge and lighting designer Jack Rozema quickly decided that Robe's PAINTE and one other contender offered the ideal choices for profile fixtures. They looked at both and chose PAINTE. "It was a solid, well spec'd light that ticked many boxes," Guezinge says. Rozema recommended the LEDBeam 350s, noting that these two fixture types complement one another very well. Four PAINTE profiles are used for front lighting, covering the 7m-wide, 5m-deep stage, with the rest rigged on one of the overhead upstage bars. "They are also excellent for dance parties and events, very nice multipurpose lights, and in my opinion, one of the best in Robe's current range," Rozema says. The final choice of lighting units was based on a series of shootouts, for which Robe's Benelux distributor Controllux brought Robe to the table. Between this event and the designers' research and fact-finding, FORTE was picked as the overall best option for their needs, "the main ones being that it was bright and relatively compact," Guezinge says. The Spiiders were well-priced and work well in conjunction with the FORTES, "We are very happy also with this combination," he confirms. Since then,13 PAINTES and 10 LEDBeam350s have been added to the inventory. De Oosterpoort stages over 500 shows, events, concerts, and commercial and private events annually, featuring all types of music from rock, metal, and pop to opera and classical; the venue also presents theatrical productions. 
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