Lisinski Concert Hall Enjoys Robe

	(l-r) Laslavic Dubravko, Dragan Micic, and Ivan Ivancevic. Photo: Louise Stickland

Lisinski Concert Hall is a major venue in Zagreb, Croatia, known for staging large-scale music shows, conferences, and congress events. Opened in 1973 and named after Croatian composer Vatroslav Lisinski, it is acclaimed for its acoustic quality, central location, and multi-genre programming across its 1,800-capacity main hall and 300-seat small hall.

The venue has been investing in Robe moving lights for around ten years and now has 20 Spiider LED wash beams, eight MegaPointes, 12 LEDBeam 350s, and four LEDWash 600s in the main hall and eight LEDBeam 150s in the small hall, which are looked after and utilized by a lighting crew of four led by Laslavic Dubravko, who has been head of lighting for 25 years.

The Spiiders and the LEDBeam 350s are the most recent purchases, delivered over the last three years by Robe's Croatian distributor, LAV Studio, as part of a technical upgrade.

Around 500 shows are staged there over the ten-month annual season, with both halls seeing a mix of rock and pop, plus classical and orchestral works.

Lighting technician Dragan Micic came onboard around three-and-a-half years ago. "When visiting crews are working here and they see we have Robe on the rig, it's instantly recognized as a good, solid brand that everyone is happy to use," he comments.

The main hall is large with an 82'-wide stage, so brightness was a critical feature when choosing fixtures -- a process that also went through a competitive tender process -- and silent running was another, especially for the classical shows.

CRI and color mixing were also compared, with Robe coming out on top. Reliability was another factor, as was the backup and support from LAV Studio, explains Micic, who reckons that the Spiider is one of the all-time best LED washes produced to date.

Lighting tech Ivan Ivancevic agrees, adding, "The Robe package offered really good value and great all-round performance." Typically, the in-house team will light about two-thirds of the shows presented each season, with the other third bringing in their own lighting designers or directors. "Most people are really happy to see Robe on our specs," he adds.

In addition to the lighting department having a say in which fixtures were chosen, the venue's overall head of technical, Nikola Tuskan, was involved, so the decisions were collective and based on the different bids that were presented.

Most of the Robe fixtures stay in place through the season, rigged on bars over the stage; the lighting team is also hoping to be able to convert the current floor specials package to include more Robe products.