Robe at the Award-Winning Innibos Festival

	Innibos Festival in South Africa

Robe moving lights were again at the hub of the lighting action for a Main Stage design by Johan Ferreira from JSF Productions at the popular 2012 Innibos Festival in South Africa.

The festival recently won a KykNET Fiestas Award for 2011's Best Festival.

The four day arts and culture extravaganza, held in Nelspruit at the Bergvlam School Grounds, was attended by 120,000 people. Technical production for the Main and Klipdrift stages was supplied by Martindale, Gauteng-based rental company Sound Headquarters, and it was Ferreira's seventh year of designing the lighting.

With the additional resonance of the award win, more audience were expected and the organizers wanted to generally up the ante on the look and feel of the event and in particular the Main Stage, so Ferreira designed something special.

The Robe fixtures totalled 52 -- a mix of Robin 600 LEDWashes, Robin 600E Beams, ColorSpot 700E AT, and 250E ATs and Scan 575 XTs.

Each day the Main Stage hosted between seven and 10 artists, including Juanita du Plessis, Steve Hofmeyer, Snotkop, Theuns Jordaan, Riana Nel, and numerous others, with a wide variety of musical genres.

Ferreira's approach was to bring a theatrical look to the stage. Although much of the show is improvised, it's imperative to him that everything looks programmed and pre-planned down to the finest details. "There's no reason a large outdoor stage can't resemble an intimate and personal theatrical space," he explains.

The Robin 600 Beams were positioned on the first three LX trusses in a V shape, with the ColorSpot 700E ATs also flown above the stage. The LEDWash 600s were rigged on the front truss and used for general stage lighting, while the ColorSpot 250s were scattered around the deck and utilized for assorted back-lighting effects.

"The Robe 600E Beams are always a great crowd pleaser," Ferreira enthuses. He used them for eye-candy, both pointing directly forwards and up into the sky in searchlight style.

Speaking about the LEDWash 600, "I genuinely feel that they are the ultimate LED wash fixture at the moment," he says.

Ferreira is delighted to have had the chance to work with some of the new fixtures over the last 12 months, adding that "specifics stand out like the robust construction and the fact that they are built to travel and tour."

He appreciates the internally powered LED display on each fixture which is helpful for addressing fixtures whilst the crew are still busy sorting out power. The light weight of the new ROBIN ranges is also a great advantage and makes everything so much more portable.

"As I have said before, it feels like every Robe fixture was designed and built by an lighting designer. It all works properly, the color mixing is fantastic and the general output is unmatched!"

Recently he had the chance to light a show at the South African State Theatre in Pretoria which has LEDWash 600s -- the first imported into the country by Robe's SA distributor DWR - in the house rig as well as generic lighting.

Having the opportunity to compare these side by side, he comments that what impressed him most "Was being able to color match the LEDWash 600s precisely to the gelled and color corrected fresnels. That's certainly something that not every LED fixture can do!"