Black Coffee gets a Robe boost at Drumsheds event

Sculpting a fluid and kinetic visual collage aligned with the heartbeat and spirit of rave was a task lighting and environment designer Eran Klein relished for Black Coffee’s incendiary performance at Drumsheds in north London. With a rig of Robe moving lights at his fingertips, Eran atmospherically engineered nearly 12 hours of superlative electronic musical experience culminating in a 3‐hour set by the innovative Grammy Award nominated DJ and music producer.

Eran’s lighting design took full advantage of the venue’s 20 metre trim height, with an impressive 11 metre diameter trussing circle centrepiece flown immediately above the DJ booth, complete with a ‘jewel’ in the middle and a laser. Behind this – in the upstage position – he needed a strong lighting presence, so Robe MegaPointes were chosen for this core design aspect, with 12 fixtures rigged on a 6‐metre diameter circle plus eight Robe Spiider wash beams. All these pointed forward adding depth and movement to the picture, blasting purposefully down the room.

Another 8 x MegaPointes were deployed on vertical trusses beneath the circle truss at varying heights, and two ladders on the upstage walls were each rigged with three MegaPointes for side back lighting and sweeping across the space. All these rear MegaPointes were Eran’s ‘go‐to’ fixtures for creating those energising bold slices, streaks and wedges of light and breakup effects shooting through the VIP area highlighting hands‐in‐the‐air and dancing bodies. “I actually had to pull these particular MegaPointes down a bit as they were too intense at times!” he admitted!

Eran loves all the creative options that Robe products offer his show designs. In this case, with doors opening at midday and the room being full from the off, as music fans imbibed the vibes there was around 8 hours to fill with interesting visuals, and Eran relied on these Robe fixtures to provide most of the visual magic. “I needed super powerful fixtures that could offer me A LOT of options,” he stated. He likes Robe products for many reasons, one of which is consistency.

“Using the range of Robe luminaires, I get perfectly matching colours across the entire rig,” which helped emphasise the harmony that was a base element of this production design.

Eran programmed and ran all lighting on a grandMA3 console. “It was a giant rave ... like a volcano … rumbling and exploding with molten energy,” he described. He collaborated closely with Naor Bonomo, laser programmer and operator who used a Madrix system, and Eran was assisted with the WYG visualisation by Goldsztayn Yaysson.

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Photos © Lindsay Cave