Robe LEDWash 600s for Roncalli Circus

Newly purchased Robe ROBIN LEDWash 600 moving lights were one of the star attractions for the seventh Circus Roncalli Christmas season, staged at the Tempodrom Möckernstraße, Berlin. The venue becomes one of the largest circus arenas in Europe for the 17-date run of seasonal performances by the famous German circus in a highly entertaining show directed by Paul Bernhard.

The Circus already owns its own lighting equipment including eight Robe ColorWash 575E AT Zooms and eight ColorSpot 700E ATs, which were purchased earlier in 2010 from Robe's Germany distributor LMP.

Robe was specified by the lighting designer Markus Weitkamp; the fixtures integrated into the circus' ongoing touring show. He chose the Robe brand because of its reputation for reliability, a vital consideration for Roncalli's heavy touring schedule that includes over 300 performances a year.

For the shows in Berlin, the designer wanted some additional magic in the lightshow, so checked out the LEDWash 600s. Almost immediately after the demo from LMP, he took the decision to purchase six of them.

Weitkamp comments, that the "efficiency, brightness, and small size" of the LEDWash 600 were primary reasons for the decision, along with the color mixing, which is smooth, seamless and beautifully homogenized into a single, strong point source. He's also impressed with the unit's "proper" white and the wide range of high quality, subtle pastel colors, together with the massive zoom range.

The LEDWash 600s were rigged on trussing around the circus ring, along with the ColorWash 575E AT Zooms, the ColorSpot 700E ATs and the rest of the lighting rig, which included 20 Robe ColorWash 700E ATs hired in from Berlin based TSE AG. There were also a host of generics and LED units, all of which were programmed and run by Wietkamp on a grandMA console.

For the Christmas show, the designer used the LEDWash units as pure wash lights -- the task for which they were specifically designed -- bathing the ring in an array of strong, dynamic and distinct colors from all areas of the spectrum. For the 2011 touring show, he intends to further experiment with the many creative effects that can be produced with the LEDWashes.

Says Wietkamp, "The performance of our initial Robes while touring really convinced me that they are excellent and robust products -- they just worked perfectly all the time -- so I seized the opportunity to buy the LEDWashes, which are very unique fixtures."

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