Robe jazzes it up in Ghent

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Bart Weyts from L&L Stage Services created a brand-new lighting design using 86 Robe moving lights, including 35 new T1s, for the Ghent Festival 2019. 

L&L provided technical production for the 10-day festival and has been involved in the main stage technical production over the last few years, working directly for the organisers.

This year, L&L purchased T1s with this and other projects in mind from Robe’s Benelux distributor, Controllux, adding to its rental inventory of Robe moving lights.

The T1s have the advantage of being silent: Jazz performances often feature some very intense ‘pin drop’ moments – where the ambience can potentially be ruined by the clunking and whirring of a moving light.

In addition to these, 29 x Spiiders and 22 x LEDWash 600s graced the rig which was based on Danny Nolan’s design for Sting.

The lights were positioned on three overhead trusses slightly racked (lowest at the back) above the stage and on a front (advance) truss, with the LEDWash 600s on two 90-degree trusses running out above the audience. This year the main stage was beneath a new semi-open tented roof structure.

In addition to meeting all of Sting’s requirements, the lighting scheme was designed to give a good general coverage for the great diversity of artists.

Other key reasons that Bart purchased the T1s include the output / brightness – based on the fact that they do a lot of festivals like this where 70% is in daylight, plus the flexibility of also producing effects on top of any general lighting.

“It’s an extremely nice fixture,” Bart commented. “It’s bright even in the most saturated colours and everything about it is high-quality.”

The main stage hosted around five artists per day over the 10-day festival, so the rig had to work well for all and cover multiple bases.

Bart specifically wanted to use LED fixtures for the event and do L&L’s bit to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible.

The primary lighting director / operator for the main stage was Kristof van Mensel of TCF who used a ChamSys MQ500, and L&L deployed a crew of six for the show days.

Simultaneous to supplying Ghent Jazz 2019, L&L serviced four other events with technical production on the opening weekend also using Robe for moving lights.

Molly Hookings
Author: Molly Hookings

Molly joined the editorial team in March 2019. She has several years’ experience working in broadcast and journalism, as well as marketing and PR. Past experience includes working for the BBC and independent publishing houses. If you have a story you think Molly might be interested in, please email: molly@eventindustrynews.com