Lighting Designer Chris Robinson Finds Many Uses for Astera Products

	The QuikPunch proved well-suited for Armadillo Luxury Rugs at a Lower East Side industrial space, which needed rugs installed on the walls lit, plus an enormous fabric sculpture in the yard, its suspension cables concealed. Photo: Chris Robinson

New York-based lighting designer Christopher Robinson, of Revolutionary Lighting, has been head of lighting at the Broadway blockbuster hit Hamilton since 2015. He worked on all North American productions, touring and resident, of the show until 2020 and COVID.

Learning new skills and seeking to reinvent his career, he made his first Astera purchase, a set of Titan Tubes in 2020. He soon found plenty of new, improvised, and underground streaming, video, and other creative art and community projects popping up, as people worked on being imaginative and staying busy.

The Titan Tubes soon became one of the best investments he's made, used by him to light a host of different scenarios. For larger projects, he started hiring in more -- and different -- Astera products, usually from Main Light.

Battery power and portability made Astera an ideal choice for many of these scenarios, but it was more than that. "I love the quality of Astera light output, the color mixing and sheer usability of the fixtures anywhere -- from the fact that they are battery powered to being able to run them off my phone," he says.

Robinson started his professional career as a musician -- he also plays guitar and sings -- and party DJ/VJ. After purchasing the Titan Tubes, he lit an increasing number of music, art, design, and fashion projects.

More recently, he has purchased Astera QuikSpots and QuikPunches, an investment made specifically for shows with Miguel Cervantes -- the longest-running Hamilton lead for whom he has been working since 2022 - and lighting corporate shows in a Hudson Yards office tower penthouse using Titan Tubes.

"What convinced me to buy was a show at the Old Navy store in Times Square, where I had to light dancers on platforms, with only a tiny decorative wooden slat available for a rigging point," he says.

The QuikPunch proved well-suited for a job via Brooklyn-based audio-visual production company Devlin's for Armadillo Luxury Rugs at a Lower East Side industrial space, which needed rugs -- installed on the walls -- lit, plus an enormous fabric sculpture in the yard, complete with its suspension cables concealed.

Robinson designed a goal post cantilevered over a scenic gallery wall, so a super-lightweight fixture was required. Laura Bickford, sales manager at Main Light, suggested QuikPunch, weighing in at only 14lb each, so he hooked seven onto the Unistrut -- itself ratchet-strapped to the building structure. The sculpture lighting started at the wall and followed the cascading yarn down onto the floor, a substantial area to light.

Another neat application was a New York Fashion Week event staged at the Olney Gleason Gallery in Chelsea. With no hanging options for lights, Robinson obtained a long-threaded rod for attaching his QuikSpots and QuikPunches to the Unistrut in the ceiling, lighting tables and other features around the room.

During the 2026 FIFA World Cup Final, he lit an entire room for the liquor company Diageo with QuikSpots, QuikPunches, AX2-50 and AX2-100 PixelBars, plus a few moving lights to ramp up the party vibes.

He had not lit molo walls before, but grazing them with vertically mounted AX2s brought stunning results. "It's the same principle as lighting a brick wall from the floor and letting the shadows cascade up the facade," he says. The fixtures were mounted vertically so the light travelled horizontally across the texture. The curved entrance-way units were lit with the QuikSpots and QuikPunches.

For Sugar Sugar! -- a free, annual outdoor performing arts festival staged at Brooklyn's Domino Square waterfront amphitheatre -- Robinson rigged QuikPunches on bespoke mobile towers and wheeled them to the different stages and areas of the park as required.

The towers were made from theatrical base plates with added castors plus a 4' stick of truss, one QuikSpot and two QuikPunches, and these provided the primary side light for all stages. "They made sure I could get close to the action wherever that happened to be," he explains.

Robinson says Astera light sources and the Titan LED engine are "fantastic" for key lighting and producing great flesh tones. He also appreciates the zoom as one of the defining features, adding, "They can be used virtually anywhere."