REMA 1000 colours up with Robe
- Details
The challenge of lighting this was down to Sune Verdier, well-known for his creative flare in concert touring and theatre. He utilised 124 Robe moving lights at the core of his production design, which had to cover a full seated conference session in the afternoon followed by a full-on dance party and concert in the evening.
A star-studded line-up featured some of Denmark’s most popular artists - rockers Nephew, dance-pop band Infernal, post-punk phenomenon Minds of 99, rap group Benal and DJs Martin Jensen and house guru Kato.
The evening’s action kicked off with a hi-energy DJ set by Rema 1000 CEO Ole Robert Reitan and after a brief presentation for 13 regional store winners, from which Valby was crowned ‘Store of the Year 2019’, the full entertainment programme started rolling, with some special show-stopping performances.
Sune has lit the event for the last three years - although this year was considerably bigger because of the 25-year Danish anniversary - and it was also the first time in Herning Arena which holds 17,000 people.
He was originally asked onboard by head of show and production Frederik Heitmann of Simple Creations with whom he also works running lighting for the Arena stage at Roskilde Festival.
Sune wanted the aesthetic to be video heavy from the off, so, inspired by the theme of “1000 Colours of Rema”, the idea was to make the space explode and come alive with colour, vibrancy and good vibes!
Two stages were built on the auditorium floor one in front of the other - the plan was to have five-minute changeovers, so they needed two performance areas so one band performed while the next one was set up.
All the key and top lighting over the two stages were achieved with 18 Robe BMFL WashBeams, with a further four BMFL WashBeams rigged on an advance truss running via a Robe RoboSpot remote follow system.
Generic stage front light and all the audience lighting was provided by several rows of LED wash fixtures, plus a few more specifically to augment the key lighting BMFLs.
Sixteen MegaPointes were positioned on the floor in the wings of the main stage and used for big sweeping aerial effects and low cross and fill lighting.
Sune programmed everything himself into the grandMA2 console and worked closely with his systems engineer, Thomas Brockmann. They accommodated three guest LDs / operators and Sune lit the other four artists and ran all other show lighting element.
Three grandMA2 full size and one grandMA3 full size consoles ran lighting and video, with a grandMA2 light for the Pyro all networked and managed over MA-net, with guest LD showfiles merged into the system and universes allocated to the console they used as needed.
The lighting and video equipment were delivered by Mediatec from Sweden, the video content was produced by Third Option and the audio kit came from Patchfire. Sound was designed by Markus Bock.
(Jim Evans)
