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Neushoorn upgrades with Robe

Neushoorn - Dutch for “rhinoceros” - is a music venue in the heart of Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, complete with two halls, a cafe area that’s also used as a performance space, rehearsal rooms and studios, plus strong educational ties with local vocational college Firda, which focuses on music, drama, theatre and the arts, running both technical and creative courses.

The venue received a tranche of funding at the end of 2023 to upgrade its technical infrastructure, which has included purchasing a bunch of new Robe LED fixtures that are primarily rigged in the Main Hall, including 22 Paintes, twelve LEDBeam 350s, four LEDBeam 350 FWs (fresnel wash - for smoother edges and enhanced colour homogenisation), six Spiiders, eight TetraXs and sixteen LEDBeam 150s. These were delivered during 2024 by Robe’s Benelux distributor Controllux.

The fixtures were on a list compiled by technical consultant and lighting designer Sebastiaan Groen (also a former employee), Neushoorn’s head of lighting Jorden Boersma, and their overall head of technical, Michiel Cornelisse. The latter also co-ordinated and oversaw the budgeting; he was already familiar with the needs of the venue, being a professional sound engineer and through his connection as the principal sound engineering teacher at Firda.

The venue’s two halls are the Main Hall with a capacity of 750, and the Small Hall, which can host around 350 people depending on the configuration. The cafe can further accommodate 150 people, and these spaces often run simultaneously, producing over 500 shows and events a year. Additionally, Firda uses the venue for teaching assorted course modules and for their own productions.

Neushoorn previously had an installation of Robe’s first-generation DL series LED theatrical luminaires with seventeen DL4Xs, which arrived in in 2016. These fixtures have been moved to the Small Hall. Most of the new lights are rigged in the Main Hall, including a floor package comprising Spiiders, Tetras and four of the Paintes, and the sound system there is Funktion-One. The Small Hall has been revamped with the seventeen DLX Spots, four of which are in their floor package, together with the same quantity of new LEDBeam 150s.

Lighting control in the Main Hall is an Avolites Arena console, with a T3 for the area running the latest Titan Mobile software. Boersma will typically light around fifty percent of the shows coming through, and the rest will bring their own LDs or operators.

Pictured (left to right): Twan Schipper from Controllux, Neushoorn’s Jorden Boersma, Michiel Cornelisse and Sebastiaan Groen, and Controllux’s Maikel Sakkers. (Photos: Louise Stickland/Paul Clarke)

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