Robe Helps Hungarian National Day Spectacular

	Eight Robe iBOLTS were positioned on top of the Chain Bridge's two arches. Photo: Louise Stickland

Budapest was transformed into a canvas of drama, color, excitement, and storytelling in a mixed-media spectacular to celebrate its National Day on August 20. The 35-minute time-coded show involved monumental projections, lasers, lighting, drone shows and a massive fireworks display that blew up along a 5km stretch of the Danube River.

Visual Europe Group (VEG) was the event's main technical supplier, providing sound, lighting, lasers, video walls, projection mapping, and a large-scale drone show for this extensive main city center site along both sides -- Buda and Pest -- of the river.

Robe iBOLTS, iFORTES, and iFORTE LTXs played a significant role in illuminating four key architectural elements: the 387'-wide Hungarian Parliament Building, the Hungarian National Gallery, the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, and Elisabeth Bridge.

The project was managed by Visual Europe Group's in-house team, with all key technical decisions handled internally. Close collaboration between all of these was ensured by project lead Zoltan Osz, who oversaw end-to-end production and delivery in alignment with the creative design team at GYAR post-production company, part of the Visual Europe Group.

Tibor Kalla was the lighting designer. It was the first time he had worked in this capacity on the National Day event, although previously he had been part of the team as a systems engineer and network installation specialist. He collaborated closely with VEG to choose the best fixture placements around the city.

Eight Robe iBOLTS were positioned on top of the Chain Bridge's two arches. The bridge is one of Budapest's most iconic landmarks -- and iBOLTS were used as super-bright beacons of light to draw attention to this focal point of the show. During the time-coded show, the arches were illuminated with projection, and the iBOLT's sky beams were synced with the music and projections.

At the Parliament Building, on the Pest side of the river, ten iFORTES were positioned to illuminate the North side of the building, supporting the projections that appeared on its front facade.

The Hungarian National Gallery sits on the Buda bank of the river and is part of the Buda Palace complex. One of the highest-altitude points across the whole city, it is highly visible as part of the show vista; this year, its front facade and central dome were illuminated with 16 x iFORTE LTXs in a series of different colors plus gobo texturing to give it more depth and resonance.

The iFORTE LTXs sat on scaffolding towers built and spaced out along the Savoy Terrace in front of the National Gallery.

The Elisabeth Bridge pylons were illuminated with 16 iFORTE LTXs, with another 64 iFORTES shooting beams off the sides. This bridge is built at the narrowest part of the Danube, spanning 951' and is named after Elisabeth of Bavaria, empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. It was the furthest southern point of the main show site, with the Margaret Bridge being the most northern point in the opposite direction along the river.

The fixtures were placed on staging platforms spaced along the bridge's pedestrian walkway sections.

The Robe fixtures were chosen for their IP ratings and brightness. They were part of roughly 900 lighting fixtures deployed around the city center site by VEG for a show that attracted approximately 1.5 million visitors.

Among the major challenges for the VEG team of 250 was coordinating with other independent technical departments; when they arrived on-site, both the power supply and data infrastructure were already in place across this vast urban landscape.

The projection mapping was achieved using 67 Panasonic PT-RQ35K 35,000-lumen projectors and Disguise VX4 media servers, set up in containers at the main control position on the Buda side of the river opposite the Parliament building. They were shooting approximately 1,312' across to the façade of the 1902 Neo-Gothic architectural masterpiece. An extremely tight get-in schedule added to the pressure on the production side. The lighting build started on August 13 and continued until the evening of August 18, with just one rehearsal on the 19. Lighting rigging on Elisabeth Bridge was left until last, as it was only accessible once all the city centre road traffic closures were in place, coordinated by the police department, all adding to more logistical complexities for the lighting crew.

The fireworks were designed and executed independently by Budapest-based pyro specialists NUVU and were fired from multiple sites, including a series of barges moored along the river.

Szabolcs Botond, CEO of VEG, comments, "Being part of the Hungarian National Day is both an honour and a responsibility. It allows us to showcase the full spectrum of our technical expertise while contributing to a historic and symbolic event that unites the entire country."

The complete overall event organization was delivered by Lounge Event, an experienced event management agency sharing the same ownership as Visual Europe Group.