Leading Slovenian lighting designer Crt Birsa was asked to create a dynamic
production lighting scheme for the main stage at the 2015 Schengenfest event,
Slovenia’s largest festival, staged at Vinica, Bela Krajina and attracting up to 10,000
music fans each day. They enjoyed a series of rousing performances from a
selection of top international artists and local heroes including Rudimental (DJ set),
Asian Dub Foundation, Magnifico, Siddharta Stahlzeit and Guano Apes.
Birsa chose to use close to 80 x Robe moving lights which were mostly supplied by
rental company Intralite. This included 20 x Pointes, 16 x Robin 600E Beams, 20 x
ColorSpot 1200E ATs, 20 x ColorWash 575E AT Zooms and three ColorSpot 700 E
ATs all right at the centre of the design, which also utilised a number of other
lights.
Birsa and programmer / operator Nikola Podlesnik worked closely on creating a
range of good looking shows for all the bands not bringing their own LDs. Both are
busy freelancers, and on this occasion, were asked to take care of the Schengenfest
lighting by Intralite.
Intralite has a large stock of Robe fixtures, however the Pointes were cross rented
as they were a key to Birsa’s design, and, he reckons, “Just the best beam / spot
type fixtures on the market right now!’
The Robes were placed all over the stage to give different layers and levels of
lighting that could produce big, bold, impressive pictures.
He laid down the base washes and specials and then created the unique looks over
the top using the Pointes.
The Pointes were the real centrepiece, giving Birsa the latitude to create different
lighting looks and scenes for every act appearing on the stage.
He likes both the linear and multi-facet prisms – especially when applied across
multiple fixtures which can be especially eye-catching.
He thinks the gobo selection is imaginative and having the second beam-reducing
gobo is very useful. They made much use of the colour wheel effects for this event,
and Birsa remarks that having the red first on the wheel and the UV last makes
some eye-catching flips.
“They’re also very fast fixtures – the overall movement and parameters like the
zoom – and of course the brightness is excellent,’ he states, adding that they used
the zoom frequently to vary the beam width. “They are still more than bright
enough … even when using a wide zoom,’ he maintains.
Birsa has used Robe products in his work for some time, and observes that the
compatibility between fixtures makes them all the more usable when combining
different generations of fixtures.
On this, the ColorSpot 1200E ATs’ red/UV gobo combined nicely with the red gobo to
the 600E Beams. “This continuity helps to create great new overall looks using all
the products – from present and past’.
