Robe iFORTES Drafted for Arena Shows Starring Amble, Irish Trio

	The back wall of ten-wide and six-high Spiiders on ladder trusses made a dramatic statement. Photo: Adam Heffernan

The Irish indie-folk trio Amble played three sold-out shows at Dublin's 3 Arena -- their largest headlining gigs to date -- plus one at Belfast's SSE Arena, with lighting designed by Steven Douglas.

Douglas used 68 Robe iFORTE and 60 Robe Spiider moving lights as the primary lighting and effects fixtures, supplied, together with additional lights, sound, video, and rigging, by Dublin-based rental company, Just Lite, project-managed by John McGuinness and Paul Smith.

Amble liked the idea of a big back wall of lights, which Douglas took as a starting point, framing it with an eye-catching LED proscenium arch to complement the wall of Spiiders. In addition to the three members of the band.

Fundamental to Douglas' aesthetic was "keeping them close together. I didn't want to have a 60' wide stage with a load of dead space and people feeling uncomfortable," he says, so the LED pros and the back wall of lights functioned as practical set pieces, to which he added risers for the guest artists at the Dublin shows.

The back wall of ten-wide and six-high Spiiders on ladder trusses made a dramatic statement. Douglas also used it to create subtle twinkling and kinetic effects. Spiiders gave him "many options" and were interspersed with some blinders and strobes.

Spiiders were chosen as he wanted "a big face wash light," adding that the unit's central chip and flower effect were instrumental "in giving the show a unique look and an edge at times."

The 68 iFORTES were positioned on the overhead and front trusses and on side torms with 12 fixtures on the floor for some rear lumen power. Douglas calls the unit a "bright, reliable, versatile choice with a good gobo set."

Six iFORTES, rigged on the front truss, were paired with a remote followspot system with two front lights each designated to the members of Amble, together with one iFORTE from the back, on a separate truss just upstage of the pros, so for every person there were three iFORTE followspots. These were complemented by sidelighting from another eight iFORTES.

The 12 iFORTES on the floor were used for big, beamy backlight looks.

Time was tight, so Douglas built most of the show on Capture and spent two intense days of previsualization at Just Lite's studio in Dublin.

Prior to the Arena shows, Douglas completed a quick run of shows with the band in the UK in smaller venues like Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom and London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, carrying only a small floor package in a trailer with the main workhorse being six Robe Spiiders.

"It's very much a show about the band's performance," Douglas says, "so we created an architecture around them and lit it appropriately, putting all the emphasis on them but with the capacity to go a little crazier as the show evolved."