Costa Cruises Rocks Sanremo with Huge iBOLT Show with Robe

	"We certainly achieved our goal of being clearly seen from all along the shoreline," Iavarone says. Photo: by Roberto Iaverone / Drone shots from Pamela Dosini

Aligning a special seven-night cruise with the finale of the Sanremo Music Festival -- which chooses Italy's Eurovision pick each year -- Costa Cruises and Carnival Maritime commissioned a massive lighting installation aboard the Costa Toscana, which was moored approximately 1km out of Sanremo's harbor for the Saturday night music extravaganza. This super-sized piece of light art involved 60 Robe iBOLTS. It was overseen by Roberto Iavarone, entertainment superintendent for the Costa fleet, who coordinates all things related to entertainment and technical production aboard Costa's vessels.

"We had initially wanted to do this monumental style of light show for the 2024 event," Iavarone explains "but it was not possible to amass the right equipment in the time available, so we did a show, but this year the goal was to go huge." The 337m-long and 72m-high vessel -- currently the largest in the Costa fleet -- was clearly visible from the shore.

In addition to the light show, an entertainment program was scheduled in the onboard Colosseo venue featuring the electronic band Planet Funk, with elements of the show streamed to the Sanremo Festival ESC selection broadcast live to the Teatro Ariston venue in Sanremo.

The iBOLT installation was a collaboration between lighting designers Amedeo Orfei and Davide Trentacoste, of Fix Advanced Entertainment Solution, Iavarone, and Costa Cruises' entertainment technical operations director Paolo Campanelli.

iBOLTS were chosen by Campanelli, Iavarone, and Orfei. The challenge was amassing enough iBOLTS. For this, RM Multimedia's sales director, Ermanno Tontini, assisted in connecting them with several rental companies in Italy who own units.

The iBOLTS were positioned along Deck 18 of the Costa Toscana, with the control and programming position below on Deck 9, plus some additional flood and wash lights rigged on Deck 8 and at the base of the ship's funnel to uplight and illuminate the harbor side of the vessel. Installation was completed by integrator Videlio HMS.

"The results were truly amazing," Iavarone says; the iBOLT beams, blasted up into the night sky, were visible for many kilometers. "We certainly achieved our goal of being clearly seen from all along the shoreline, and the light show generated lots of SoMe chatter, photos, and engagement, all of which had a great impact and buzz."

Other Robe fixtures were also used in the Colosseo lighting rig for Planet Funk's performance, and Robe moving lights also featured in various entertainment spaces onboard the Costa Toscana.

The ship is an Excellence-class vessel, built in 2021, and is currently the ninth-largest cruise ship worldwide. It can accommodate 6,554 passengers and 1,645 crew.