De Leest rolls with large Robe investment

Theater De Leest in Waalwijk, the Netherlands, is a contemporary cultural centrepiece of the city and its surrounding region, which opened in 1996. A major refurbishment 10 years ago saw the addition of the ‘new’ 200 capacity black box theatre hall complete with a retractable seating system, making it a flexible space, which, together with the existing 520‐ seater main auditorium, offers a vibrant programme of musicals, concerts, cabaret, family shows, opera, dance, youth theatre, and film screenings.

technical at De Leest since 2004 and oversaw the specification and tender process, which has resulted in the supply of no less than 230 new Robe static and moving LED lights, delivered by Robe’s Netherlands distributor, Controllux.

These bring the stage lighting bang up‐ to‐date and will be used across the two performance spaces to replace the previous lights, some of which dated back to when De Leest opened! The Robe fixtures will provide highly flexible and dynamic lighting for both halls and all productions, as well as being more sustainable.

The project featured eight different types of Robe fixtures: 37 x TX1 PosiProfile with gobo modules, 16 x ESPRITES with Robe’s TE (TRANSFERABLE ENGINE) HCF LED

engine, 24 x LEDBeam 150s, 25 x LEDBeam 350s, 18 x Tetra2s, 24 x ParFect 150 FWQs, 48 x T15 PCs and 38 x T11 Profiles again with the gobo modules.

These can be rigged on the large hall’s 45 motorised over‐stage bars and side bars, and in the smaller hall’s fixed grid, and those not in use are stored and moved around in custom meat racks designed and fabricated for efficient running of the venue.

These are also the first moving lights in the house, on top of replacing conventional profiles, PCs, fresnels and par cans. It’s a substantial investment and a big change, looking positively at De Leest’s future.

The initial discussions on how to introduce LED were initiated in 2019, explained Luc, and these included input from senior lighting technicians Peter Visser and Raymond Eckhardt, who started looking around at what was then available to modernise and capitalise on various incentives to install and utilise greener technology.

Everything slowed down for a while during the pandemic, and then the specification for replacing the original lights was reactivated with vigour. In particular, they wanted multi‐spectral light sources due to the outstanding colours that are produced through additive colour mixing.

Other important elements were quietness of the fixtures and smooth dimming, all of which the Robe proposal from Controllux satisfied brilliantly, in addition to the brightness of the luminaires.

“Everyone is very happy,” commented Peter, who took the trouble to match the Lee filter colour range with exact correct values in the Robe LED engines – tested against a 1000W PAR as a benchmark – measured with a spectrometer, and translated then saved to the console. This was a huge undertaking, allows them to present real colours and results instantly to any potential LED‐sceptical LDs and productions.

From an operational perspective, the transition to LED from conventional lighting has also been a learning curve that the tech team has embraced with great enthusiasm, especially for the excellent results now achieved in lighting all shows.

Peter visited the Robe factory in the Czech Republic in 2024 and was suitably impressed with the skill, dexterity and detail that goes into the production of each product. He also sees the advantages of Robe manufacturing everything – including the PCBs – in‐house for their product lines and perceives Robe as a solid, reliable brand with a great reputation that virtually all lighting professionals will work with.

Also fundamental to any investment of this scale is having a good relationship and trust in the local suppliers. The crew at De Leest – a total of 6 for all the technical disciplines plus Luc – were already familiar with Controllux, where the project was co‐ordinated by Maikel Sakkers. He also dealt with the logistics and fluidity needed in fulfilling the tender according to the timeline.

A full fibre control network was installed by local partner DRM‐ Showtechniek, located in nearby Raamsdonksveer, as part of this latest upgrade, and the stage lighting is controlled via sACN. At the time of writing, the land outside De Leest was being remodelled from a utilitarian concrete urban square to a greener and more attractive garden‐style environment … ready for the theatre’s winter and spring seasons.

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