Robe at Lollapalooza Berlin
Robe at Lollapalooza Berlin 2024 Over 500 Robe moving lights were supplied by three top German rental and technical production companies to four main stages at the 2024 Lollapalooza Berlin festival, organised by Live Nation and staged over two days at the Olympiastadion (Olympic Stadium), proving once again that Robe is a powerful, reliable and weatherproof choice for outdoor events needing quality production lighting.
The North and South stages, the Alternative Stage and Perry’s Stage all rocked Robe this year supplied by TSE (North), the Media Resource Group – MRG (South & Perry’s) and Sound Projekt (Alternative) as around 110,000 music fans over the two days were treated to a fantastic lineup and some sizzling hot pseudo-summer September weather as the mercury pushed over 30 degrees and the sun shone brightly.
FOH crews at these main stages appreciated some special Robe Festival Fridges, supplied by Robe Germany, that were kept fully stocked up with cool water and refreshments for the crews and security staff who were on duty for long hours ensuring everyone safely enjoyed some excellent performances.
North Stage
This was physically the biggest stage at the festival – four bays deep, one more than the South Stage – with all structures supplied by Stageco. Peter Weist was TSE’s FOH lighting ‘babysitter’, he is one of their regular freelancers, and a classic festival production lighting design was presented that would work for all the acts including headliners OneRepublic on Saturday and Sam Smith on Sunday.
The Robe fixtures included FORTEs, MegaPointes and Spiiders, all spread out over four trusses, with iFORTEs on the front truss in the most exposed positions and additional MegaPointes on the floor stretching out along the side wings.
At FOH, two Robe PATT2013s were rigged in the structure to illuminate the Robe FOH Fridge which was a lifesaver and ensured everyone working in and around the lighting FOH area stayed hydrated and happy in the searing heat!
South Stage
The South and North stages were offset by around 145 degrees facing away from one another, both in the main area of the stadium and operated in ‘flip-flop’ style. They were scheduled to allow the audience plenty of time to get from one to the other.
Lighting was supplied by Media Resources Group, and included Robe iFORTEs, BMFLs and Spiiders rigged over the stage, with 8 x iFORTE LTXs at FOH for follow spots, paired with 8 x RoboSpot BaseStations under the stage. The FOH lighting co-ordinator here was Marvin Amstädter.
Perry’s Stage
For the first year ever at Lolla Berlin, Perry’s Stage lighting was also supplied by MRG based in Crailsheim in Baden- Württemberg. Perry’s was located inside the imposing Olympic Stadium building itself, and as usual was a pumping haven for EDM and dance music lovers, headlined by Martin Garrix and The Chainsmokers.
Obviously, they needed all those super- quick, effect-heavy fixtures so 34 x MegaPointes and 52 x Pointes were deployed, joined by 41 x Spiiders, 4 x BMFL Blades, 18 x Tetra2s and two standard FORTEs, which together with other luminaires, were positioned with reference to the headliner’s lighting plots.
Lighting on Perry’s stage was looked after by Oliver Reusch, and Kilian commented again that there was no question about having Robe on this fast- paced stage; “Robe on the rig makes it very easy for us in that everyone accepts the brand, there’s never any questions, they are always happy to work with these products”.
Alternative Stage
Sound Projekt from north-east Germany supplied lighting and audio plus stage management services for the Alternative Stage for the fourth year, which hosted a slew of great artists including Sam Tompkins, Glass Beams, Christopher and many more. The stage was project managed for them by Fabian Schwabe and the lighting operator and FOH co-ordinator was Martin Trantow. This year, there was no video on the stage, so all the visual drama and atmos needed to be created with lighting, for which they needed “properly multifunctional” lights that could cover many different scenarios, explained Fabian. The production lighting design was a practical and well- tested festival formula, with 20 x MegaPointes for the beams and 24 x Spiiders for the washes, all rigged in the three over-stage trusses and two roll- on-roll-off floor trusses to offer additional floor specials from the deck. These were augmented with 4 x iPointes and 6 x iSpiiders in the more exposed positions on the front truss. The floor setup proved very popular
this year, with all bands utilising it, and all the Robe fixtures were pulled from their rental inventory.
Show photos © Louise Stickland
Robospot photo © Kilian Körber, Media Resource Group
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