Aktuelle News & Schlagzeilen

Crt Birsa uses Robe for Slovenian Eurovision pre-selection

Crt Birsa from design studio Blackout fitted nearly 400 lighting fixtures into a 20 x 20 metre space in Studio 1 at the Slovenian National television station - Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV) - complex in Ljubljana. A large proportion of these were Robe moving lights - with 54 MegaPointes, 54 Spiiders, 24 Pointes, 12 Fortes and 14 Tetra2s on the rig - all delivered by Slovenian rental company Event Lighting.

Birsa added these to all the fixtures that were available from RTV’s studio in-house rig which also included two Robe BMFL Blades used as rear spotlights for the main artists. Birsa’s lighting design was developed in close collaboration with set designer Greta Godnic: a diagonally orientated square LED stage - allowing it to change shape and texture - located in the middle of the space.

Behind this were two “upstage” walls created from LED strips and set in a V-shape aligning with the angle of the sides of the diagonal stage, and with the audience seated all around. Above the stage were two box trusses, one inside the other. The outer one was populated with the 24 Pointes to give a cage effect. The inside square truss was also rigged with beam lights for a tighter cage, and Birsa created some effects flipping back and forth between the different cage looks. “I wanted this very precise, clean and well-defined overall look”, he explains, adding that he aimed to produce unique looks and settings for the twelve competitors and five guest artists.

Eleven of the Fortes, partially concealed, were positioned on the floor around the stage - beside the Tetra2s they were only ground based units - and utilised for low angle gobo shots and other effects. The remaining Forte was rigged centrally in the front of the stage and controlled via a RoboSpot system, and this was the main key light.

The MegaPointes and Spiiders were all rigged on ladders in between the gaps in the LED columns across six levels, giving an 18 x 6 matrix of effects lights behind the stage. The combination of these two fixture types enabled Birsa to produce the desired array of looks, scenes and effects, including some moody back-lighting and silhouetting of artists and back-highlighting of the lighting kit on the square trusses above the stage. Underlining the lowest level of the wall of Robe moving lights was a line of strobes.

This is the tenth Eurovision pre-selection that Birsa has lit for Slovenia, and every year he keeps imagining fresh and different ideas. The wall of lights was something he had wanted to do for some time. “This was my lucky year in that respect, getting the chance to build this into the design and freely use prisms, gobos, flower effects, pixels, etc.”, he says. “I could have lit 100 different songs using this set up and still had headroom for more.”

The Tetra2s were initially intended to be integrated into the wall of Robe lights in the back, but once the site build started, Birsa found the optimal position for them behind the stage with the Forte army. Matching CTOs across all the fixtures was one of the crucial tasks for the lighting department. Another challenge was ensuring that everything was not too overwhelmingly bright but still filled the space nicely and looked balanced.

Birsa comments, with a grin, that he could easily have added more lights into the space if the budget had allowed, but also notes that having some limits is good for creativity. The challenge, as often the case with high-pressure TV shows, was in the programming. Birsa worked with his Blackout colleague Anze Trstenjak who took care of the key lighting while he worked on the effects lighting. They spent ten days pre-vizzing in WYSIWYG, followed by ten days of rehearsals in the studio before the final event, which was broadcast live, directed by Tina Novak. LED content creator and playback video operator was Andrej Inithar (VJ Rasta).

(Photos: Crt Birsa/Blackout)

www.robe.cz

© 1999 - 2025 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories