UK - Robe enjoyed a ‘fantastic’ PLASA London expo at Olympia which continues to expand, create more buzz and attract a dynamic cross-section of the industry.
Robe and all its brands – Avolites, Anolis, LSC Control Systems and Artistic Licence – took up the largest footprint on the show floor, revealing a spectacular new live expo show Excalibur & the Lights of the Round Table which included two talented dancers, acrobat Oskar Skrypko, and Pauline, a 2.6-ton industrial robot all right at the centre of the action.
The Czech Republic-based manufacturer used this opportunity to launch six versatile new LED lighting products – T3 Profile, iPainte LTM, SVOPATT Classic, Footsie1 MC and Footsie2 MC, plus the PowerDolly, which is ‘a highly practical innovation that the world of ‘festival specials’ and touring floor packages has been waiting for!’
Robe continues to add to its already substantial collection of PLASA Innovation Awards, this time getting recognition for its ProFrost diffusion system, which sets new industry benchmarks. The judges were impressed with the “continuously variable and even diffusion of this frost across the beam, even with shutters and gobo edges introduced.”
ProFrost offers lighting and visual designers seamless levels of diffusion control that were previously unachievable with this progressive frost that smoothly melts and dissolves projections to any desired level. Operable at any zoom setting, it diffuses from 0° - 15°, producing the most natural and organic looking softening to the complete beam dispersion – evenly and across the full field – effectively allowing fixtures to be used as ‘key lighting soft lights’.
Joining Robe’s T-Series, specifically designed and finessed for theatre and broadcast environments, the T3 Profile is designed for long-throw applications and takes high-power multispectral performance to new levels, delivering unparalleled output, light quality, and precise colour control.
The highly compact iPainte LTM punches above its size and weight and is designed to amaze with its power, precision and effects while occupying expedient truss or roof space. A 170mm front lens produces great optical quality together with a comprehensive feature set, weighing only 30kg, maximising WashBeam flexibility and performance.
Robe’s PowerDolly solves remote power issues for all environments from film sets to show stages, festival fields to corporate events to ship decks at sea and everywhere in between. It provides a simple solution to get the juice of illumination to wherever it is needed.
Weighing 80kg, the PowerDolly provides a stable, firm base with a load capacity of up to 200kg for all types of kit, including lights, audio, and AV equipment. For all round environmental protection, PowerDolly has IP65 ingress protection and for touring and location work, the unit has an IK07 impact protection rating.
Selected for safety, longevity, and extra stability, the LiFePO4 battery within the PowerDolly delivers long-lasting 5,000Wh power. Generating 2,000W for 2.5 hours, or over 300W for 16 hours, there is plenty of time and latitude to power up whatever is needed.
Following the initial SVOPATT launch, demand surged for a streamlined model echoing the essence of the original, so Robe produced the SVOPATTTM Classic.
Blending timeless design with cutting-edge performance, this makes bold impact either as a scenic element or as a dynamic light curtain or as part of a ‘pixel matrix’ combined with other ‘pixel’ style fixtures. SVOPATT Classic has nine individual modules, each with 6 x 40W RGBA multi-chips that deliver over 12,500 lumens of output and 132,500 lux at 5 metres.
With its sleek, low design, the IP65-rated Footsie MC brings footlights up to date. There are 24 x 4W RGBW or RGBA LED multi-chips on the Footsie1 MC and 48 x 4W RGBW, or RGBA LED multi-chips on the Footsie2 MC, and these rugged, IP65-rated fixtures are designed to remove any visual barriers between audience and performers with a cool, low-profile, 52mm-high design.
Smooth colour homogenisation closer to the source is produced, offering new and exciting possibilities for theatres, concert stages, festivals, fashion show catwalks or corporate events, letting your performers step out in style whatever or wherever the production and weather!
Devised by Robe’s in-house creative team led by Nathan Wan and Andy Webb, Excalibur was a high-octane romp with a pumping music track, a strong narrative and gravity-defying performance thrills designed to showcase Robe’s latest technologies in the environment for which they are built.
With each live expo show production cycle, Robe pushes the production values and gets increasingly ambitious, and here at PLASA London 2025, the company showcased around 250 products from 14 key product lines, including the new iPainte LTM … plus SVB1, SVOPATT, iEsprite LTL, iForte LTX, Painte Fresnel, WTF!, LedPointe, T15 Fresnel, iT12, iBolt and Footsie, as well as RoboSpot.
“We had the Excalibur and also a robot concept – separately – in our heads for a while,” explained Nathan, who was also inspired by a variety of dance works along the way, including Swedish performance artist Benke Rydman. “But we really needed the right products to be available to realise these visions, and this year all the stars aligned for this to happen, so we took these two themes combined and an original show with our own narrative and individual lighting treatment.” The show narrative was based around the world of Camelot under the realm of King Arthur and Lady Guinevere.
Pauline the robot is the brainchild of Ulik Robotic Shows – managed by Ulik Kahlert, based in Saarbrücken, Germany, who builds bespoke robots for performance and shows. Pauline – one of four siblings – is a 2.6-ton multifunctional robot who is self-standing and self-driving.
“We are now very integrated as a team, which means we work collaboratively extremely well and really get the most out of projects like this,” notes Nathan, also highlighting the many challenges, including the extremely short timeframe in which everything has to come together to stage a show of such exacting standards and high production values.