Robe's iBOLTS Make Big Impact for 2025 ATP Finals

	"It was imperative that these lights and the installation could be seen clearly from afar as well as enjoyed by everyone in the fan village," says Cattaneo. Photo: Giorgia Benvenuti

Tennis fans and the citizens of Turin, Italy, experienced a twice-nightly visual extravaganza created for the eight-day 2025 ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Finals, the season-ending event of the ATP Tour hosted at the Inalpi Arena. A fan village area was built in the square adjacent to the arena, created by brand experience agency Filmmaster Events and lit by Sergio Cattaneo from Milan-based CUE Design, using 40 Robe iBOLTS.

The fan village offered a wide variety of food stalls. This year, tournament organizers also wanted to offer some quality pre-match entertainment for everyone waiting to filter into the arena.

Filmmaster Events, under the creative direction of Giulia Accatino and content designer Romain Sabella from TK2, storyboarded and produced the video content, which was played out on a massive 100m-wide by 8m-tall LED screen. They asked Cattaneo to design a light show to complement and support their visual narratives.

Cattaneo decided he needed a series of big beams to work with the visual show and create a sense of spectacle and excitement. He also needed a light source that could be seen from around the city and the surrounding countryside.

iBOLTS were "my first choice," he says. "I mean, really, there is nothing else right now. I absolutely LOVE those fixtures! They are the brightest and were therefore the best for this job."

Cattaneo based his choice on the experience of two previous projects using iBOLTS, albeit in much smaller quantities. "It was imperative that these lights and the installation could be seen clearly from afar as well as enjoyed by everyone in the fan village. We really wanted to emphasise that this was a special event, having this major sporting fixture taking place in the heart of the city." Taking advantage of the unit's colors, he used a lot of white, cyan (the ATP's corporate color), and yellow, which represented the tennis ball. He also needed the unit's brightness to combat the ambient luminescence emitted by the video.

Cattaneo pre-programmed the shows -- main offering running four minutes long, plus a series of 30 and 50-second interstitials -- using Depence3, assisted by Alessandro Scotellaro in CUE Design's studios. They had one night on-site for focus, tweaking, and finessing the lighting, which included one laser that was also part of the light show, together with 17 strategically deployed hazers.

The show drew people into the city, kept fans waiting for the next match amused, and engaged. The beams and the video projections, clearly visible from the surrounding hills, generated plenty of social media chatter.

Lighting for the fan village show was supplied via lighting vendor ATS Srl, with the iBOLTs sourced from Lucidiscena.