When dance guru David Guetta rocked Budapest’s Hungexpo in front of 8000 enthusiastic fans, the producer of groove-tastic rave anthems like ‘Sexy Bitch’, ‘Who’s That Chick’ and numerous others, was illuminated by a rig of Robe moving lights supplied by locally based lighting rental company, Colossal Rental.
The Robes were an integral element of the automated lighting on Guetta’s worldwide touring spec, originated by lighting designer Jonathan “Leggy” Armstrong, and were operated on the night by touring lighting director, Alex “Junior” Cero who is based in the UK.
Colossal Rental’s client was Deadcode Productions, who delivered the show’s technical package, working for show promoters Burn. They all collaborated with Guetta’s own production team led by production manager Al Green to ensure that the rider specs were met for the high energy “Nothing But The Best” live showcase for Grammy Award winning Guetta’s fifth incendiary studio album.
The lighting rig featured twenty-nine Robe LEDWash 600s, 18 ColorSpot 1200E ATs and 12 ColorWash 250E ATs at its core, plus strobes and blinders, all of which were operated for the show by Junior using a grandMA full size console, also supplied by Colossal.
Junior worked closely with Colossal Rental’s lighting designer Adam Nagy in getting the ambitious show, complete with lots of spectacle and many WOW factors programmed and running in a tight timescale.
The Robe elements offered for this were welcomed by Junior and Leggy, and in fact the original Guetta 2011 live show design – running since the start of the year – was spec’d and programmed using Robe moving lights.
It was however the first time that Junior had had the chance to use Robe’s new LEDWash 600 moving light fixtures to their full potential in a full-on high octane live dance show like this, which he really enjoyed. “I spent ages playing with them in Budapest” he explains, “… and really enjoyed the opportunity of using features like the zones” (individual control of the three LED rings).
He also really appreciated the numerous strobe effects possible with the LEDWashes, and overall describes this as “Top banana! …. and will certainly be using them again.”
He adds that the Budapest show was “Spot on” and a really excellent event on which to end the 2011 run of Guetta full production live shows.
Colossal has two totally separate rental and sales divisions and the latter is also the Robe distributor for Hungary. They have enjoyed a very successful year as brand representatives for Robe, and their trade director Csaba Csanádi says, “Everyone has been impressed by the great light output of the LEDWashes, their beautiful ranges of colours and the LED rings which have much impact as a special effect and to create different looking eye and camera candy”. He adds the extremely compact size of the fixture, its light weight and the general reliability of the Robe brand all offer massive advantages to any show or installation situation.
Hungarian rental company Expert Crew has been one of the biggest investors in Robe’s latest technology including LEDWashes recently, and have used them on many high profile live events and television productions nationwide.
This was the second time that David Guetta has played Hungary within six months, following a stunning performance as part of the Balaton Sound Festival back in the summer.
Colossal Rental and Sales are looking forward to another busy year ahead with Robe.
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