Robe Lights Joker Out's Tenth-Anniversary ShowRobe's new GigaPointe moving lights made their Slovenian debut with indie rockers Joker Out at a tenth-anniversary event. Karneval was a festival-style, circus-themed extravaganza with special guests, staged at an outdoor venue in Ljubljana. The firm Blackout, which has been working with Joker Out since 2021, designed the lighting. Klemen Krajnc led the team; Crt Birsa handled key lighting. The designers chose to work with a large rig of Robe moving lights. This included 32 brand-new Robe GigaPointes, just delivered to rental company Event Lighting. The rig included 13 Robe FORTES, six iFORTE LTXs, 37 MegaPointes, 49 iSpiiderX wash beams, and 14 Tetra2 moving LED battens. The band opted for a spherical stage, working with set designer Maja Moravec on various circus props, intricate draping, and other scenic elements evoking a big-top look, including the onstage band risers. The central arched stage was flanked by wings dressed to resemble circus tents; certain guest performers were aerialists and other circus acts. Krajnc added the lights to this stage layout, which were overhead and around the sides of the stage structure and on eight independent scaffolding towers, six behind the stage -- graduated in height but all taller than the stage and wings and were visible over the top -- plus left and right PA towers framing the central section just in front of the stage. The GigaPointes were on the deck, positioned along the full width of the front edge of the 229'-wide, 6.5'-high stage, including the two wings and the wing returns at each end. All of these sat on a ledge half a meter below stage level. These were used primarily for dramatic effects, reaching out across the arena with piercing beams. Krajnc, using GigaPointes for the first time, declared, "They are fantastic!" The designer adds that it is "extremely handy" that the units can be exchanged, swapped, or paired parameter-for-parameter with MegaPointes. "This makes it a very smooth and seamless transition from MegaPointes to GigaPointes," he says. Twenty-seven of the 37 MegaPointes were rigged on nine over-stage finger trusses, running in an upstage / downstage orientation with different heights following the curvature of the roof arch; the other ten were upstage in a straight line. Krajnc worked these and the GigaPointes together to create some of the show's most memorable lighting scenes. Fourteen Robe Tetra2 LED battens illuminated the stage wing set elements, rigged on the floor for optimal up lighting of the vertical parts of the set. Twenty-seven iSpiiderXs were also on the finger trusses, three per truss. Another 18 generated lower side light across the sphere stage, nine per side, running front to back on low parts of the stage structure. Four iSpiiderXs delivered front key lighting for static members of the band in two high cantilevered positions on the downstage sides of the stage structure; two for the drummer and one each for the keyboardist and backing vocalists on their risers. These were under Birsa's control. He additionally layered in more keys using a combination of six iFORTE LTXs and 13 FORTES, lighting the mobile band members plus several guests. The side keys onstage used four FORTES, two each positioned on the far stage left and right (of the eight) towers and throwing onto the front of the stage, covering the performance areas at the front of the wings, the central stage apron, and the thrust area/runway. This was a long throw, perfect for the FORTE. On the two delay towers left and right of the front of house were eight FORTES; the 13th FORTE was rigged in the mid front position on the sphere stage to backlight performers as they sashayed down the central catwalk. Above the FORTES on the delay towers were six iFORTE LTXs, three per side, programmed to catch all the onstage, forestage, wing, and runway action. The six iFORTE LTXs were running on five RoboSpot systems -- the BaseStations were under the stage -- and Birsa notes that most of the time he only needed to run the LTXs at 50% intensity on camera and live. Krajnc and Birsa previsualized the show as much as was practical and on-site had two days of intense programming with the full rig. However, the main challenge for this show was the weather. An extremely violent thunderstorm hit a couple of hours before Joker Out were due to take the stage, resulting in extensive flooding and emergency adaptations being needed on the site. Some gear was drenched and waterlogged; some of the upstage back drapes were ripped off by high winds and had to be reattached. Thanks to teamwork, everything was deemed safe, and 17,000 Joker Out fans enjoyed the show. 
|
