Rhino in the room for Robe

Neushoorn – Dutch for ‘rhinoceros’ – is a busy, buzzing and vibrant music venue in the heart of Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, complete with two halls, a cafe area that’s also used as a performance space, rehearsal rooms and studios, plus strong educational ties with local vocational college, Firda, which focuses on music, drama, theatre and the arts, running both technical and creative courses.

The venue received a tranche of funding at the end of 2023 to upgrade its technical infrastructure, which has included purchasing a bunch of new Robe LED fixtures that are primarily rigged in the main hall, including 22 x PAINTES, 12 x LEDBeam 350s, 4 x

LEDBeam 350 FW (fresnel wash - for smoother edges and enhanced colour homogenisation), 6 x Spiiders, 8 x TetraXs and 16 x LEDBeam 150s. These were delivered during 2024 by Robe’s Benelux distributor, Controllux. The fixtures were on a list compiled by technical consultant and lighting designer Sebastiaan Groen (also a former employee), Neushoorn’s head of lighting Jorden Boersma, and their overall head of technical, Michiel Cornelisse.

When it came to the crunch decision- making about which new lights to get to best fulfil their needs, Robe was “an easy choice,” revealed Sebastiaan. Most of the new lights are rigged in the main hall, including a floor package comprising Spiiders, Tetras and four of the PAINTES, and the sound system there is Funktion One to the delight of audiophiles. The small hall has been nicely revamped with the 17 x DLX Spots, four of which are in their floor package, together with the same quantity of new LEDBeam 150s. Jorden mentioned that the new lighting rig makes tech’ing and lighting shows seriously easier, quicker, and more efficient as well as enabling more creative and intricate designs to be realised for productions and presentations.

Lighting control in the main hall is an Avolites Arena console, with a T3 for the area running the latest Titan Mobile software. Jorden will typically light around 50% of the shows coming through, and the rest will bring their own LDs or operators. He observes that Avo and Robe work extremely well together, a trend that is set to develop and further synergise with the 2023 acquisition of Avolites by Robe marking a new era.

www.robe.cz

Photography © Louise Stickland