Robe shines on Glastonbury stages

Robe moving lights made an impact on many stages at Glastonbury 2008. The UK’s highest profile and largest live music and performance festival enjoyed good weather and even better vibes in one of the best Glasto’s for a decade. All lighting for the Jazz World stage was supplied by Essex-based DPL for the second year running, with 12 Robe ColorSpot 1200E ATs and 6 Robe ColorWash 2500E AT’s taking centre stage for DPL director Pete Watts’ design.
DPL installed a trussing grid underneath Jazz World’s 18 metre Serious Stages Orbit roof, and the moving lights were arranged across that, together with a selection of generics and 42 square metres of ChromaQ ColorWeb LED as a backdrop and around the sides of stage. Three Robe 8-lite LEDBlinder 196 LT fixtures were also rigged on top of the PA towers for audience illumination. It was the first time that Watts had used the ColorWash 2500E ATs for one of his designs, which he describes as “Ludicrously bright” and very reliable – always a big plus for festivals with the inherently erratic nature of the weather.
On the front truss they replaced all the PARs that he’d used the previous year, in the process reducing the overall power consumption by approximately 70 amps a phase. The fixtures pull power all the time but at a far more constant rate than the peaks and troughs of incandescents. “Power is always an issue with generator supplied events” says Watts, “The stage has to be constantly and evenly lit at all times because it’s a televised event, and with green issues being such a hot topic, anything that can help in this area is a good thing”. He adds that the Robe’s have proved completely reliable – even when the weather gets a bit dodgy - and that all the visiting LDs to Jazz World were also happy to use them.
All lighting for the Pyramid and Other stages was supplied by west London based Neg Earth Lights. On the Pyramid – headlined by Kings of Leon, Jay Z and The Verve over the 3 days - they utilised 18 Robe ColorSpot 2500s and 6 Robe 8-lite LEDBlinder 196 LTs. This was looked after by Andy “Fraggle” Porter, and the Other stage was ‘babysat’ by Rob Gawler and Paul “PK” Kell.
All lighting kit on the John Peel stage – an acclaimed showcase for the hottest new, up-and-coming and recently broken talent - was supplied by South West Audio. The stage rig was designed by Cate Carter who utilised 12 Robe ColorSpot 1200E ATs and 12 ColorWash 575E ATs, along with assorted generics, all controlled from an Avolites Diamond 4 console.
Colour Sound Experiment supplied Robe moving lights for the main Dance Village stages - East and West, and also for The Glade, the Continental Drifts and Baseline Circus/Shangri La tents, and all the larger Workers beer company bars across site. The East Dance stage was designed and operated by Andy Walton, featuring eight ColorWash 700E ATs, eight ColorSpot 700E ATs and eight Robe 575 Scan XTs. A busy line up in here included X-Press 2, Roisin Murphy, Fatboy Slim and Kosheen.
The West Dance stage was looked after by Jaz Bullah and Stuart “Woody” Wood (AKA The Party Boyz) and their rig utilised ten Robe ColorSpot 700E ATs and eight ColorWash 700E ATs. The Silent Disco tent was supplied with eight ColorWash 575E ATs from Colour Sound, looked after by Lester McLure, and over in The Glade, LD Jasper Johns integrated eight ColorSpot and eight ColorWash 575E ATs into his design for this chilled and shady dance orientated arena.
Over on the Continental Drifts stage were 4 ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs, and the Baseline Circus featured 6 each of ColorSpot and ColorWash 575E ATs, which rounded off Colour Sound’s deployment of Robe for the 2008 event.
Southampton based GLS again supplied the main tent lighting in the Fields of Avalon, with Robe a key design element in the form of 8 of GLS’s new ColorSpot and ColorWash 700E ATs. This stage was looked after by Matt Morris and Will Thomas who were hugely impressed with the brightness and performance of the 700s.

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