Production Light & Sound Looks Forward with Robe's RoboSpots

	"Lone Flyer." Photo: Isobel Nicolson

Production Light & Sound in Leeds, UK, is a rental company known for offering great service, delivered with passion and commitment, by a dedicated team with a truly personal approach. The company was founded in 2000 by the late Jason Salvin and is now headed by Sarah Buckmaster who has been working for the company for the last 16 years and a director since 2018.

The scope of their work includes draping and staging in addition to lighting and sound production and embraces all areas of technical production -- live music, concerts, festivals through to slick corporate and business events.

At the start of 2020, Production Light & Sound made a large purchase of Robe RoboSpots -- four systems, complete with motion cameras -- and were, like so many enterprises, looking forward to a bumper year ahead! We all know what happened in March 2020!

"With theatres, venues opening up, shows restarting and gigs, tours and events being scheduled and re-scheduled post COVID, we hope there's going to be plenty of work ahead for the RoboSpots," states Buckmaster.

The company also offer a range of Robe fixtures to work with the RoboSpots, including MegaPointes and BMFLs.

Buckmaster and the team had been looking for a remote follow spotting solution for some time. "For all the safety and flexibility coupled with the additional speed and efficiency it brings to a show, remote follow spotting is definitely the future," she comments. They spotted a gap in the market for RoboSpots in their area, so it was a solid investment geographically, especially with the highly active arts and music scenes enjoyed in the North of England.

"It's easy to set up, intuitive to use and being able to locate operators in a different room is fantastic for theatres squeezed for space," states Buckmaster.

In addition to using the systems on PLS's own shows, with RoboSpot now being one of the most popular remote follow spotting options, Buckmaster sees it as a value-added cross rental item.

Another recent Robe purchase -- this September -- was Robe LEDBeam 150s, to boost the existing stock of this handy little fixture.

They went straight out on the acclaimed Peaceophobia produced by Fuel Theatre, Common Wealth, Speakers Corner and the Bradford Modified Club, an unapologetic response to rising Islamophobia staged in Oastler Market Car Park, Bradford and at the Contact Theatre in Manchester. Part car-meet part-theatre, three characters reveal how their modified motors are both an escape and an expression in a world that tries to define them! Andy Purves lit the show.

PLS has invested steadily in Robe in recent years, but the first Robe products purchased by PLS were 600E Spots that joined the rental inventory over ten years ago, and these are still going strong today!

Recently two of these fixtures plus two MegaPointes were supplied to the Hull Truck for "Lone Flyer" a co-production with Newbury's Watermill Theatre, a work documenting the courage, bravery, and incredible life of "Queen of Aviation" Amy Johnson. The LD for this production was Harry Armytage.

PLS also purchased Robe's MiniMe effects fixtures, which have proved a winner for corporate events requiring simple plug-and-play logos, graphics and other assorted animated media projections and branding.

For Buckmaster, an "excellent" relationship with distributor Robe UK has been another key to the continuing brand loyalty. "The Robe UK sales and tech support team are excellent," she says, adding that as a brand generally, she feels Robe has developed and brought an impressive range of solid, reliable products and innovations to the market.

Looking ahead to 2022, like most, she is cautiously optimistic that it will be an exceptionally busy year if all the COVID numbers keep going in the right direction!