Robe has A Laugh with Lado Bizovicar at Slovenska Muska Event

Slovenian writer, actor and TV personality Lado Bizovicar presented the 2024 “Slovenska Muska” extravaganza event, staged at Ljubljana’s Stožice arena, the first time in the venue’s history that a 360‐degree show had been presented.

The production and lighting design was created by Crt Birsa of design studio Blackout and Greta Godnic and recorded for broadcast. Crt utilised 355 Robe lighting fixtures in the 500+ luminaires on the rig, from the high‐ powered FORTE to the scenic PATT 2013 plus seven other types of Robe

product, all supplied by rental specialist Event Lighting from Ljubljana.

At the heart of this unique production design was an elaborate metal structure, the top part of which resembled a giant multi‐level spider crawling through the roof area! This structure cleverly incorporated the venue’s video scoreboard with the surfaces used for production video during the show, and contesting it presented multiple rigging challenges to get everything in the right places! The giant trussing spider in the roof had eight right‐angled legs stretching out into the roof void from a 10‐metre square box truss which provided ideal positions for high level audience lighting. There were additional trusses at each side of the arena loaded with more ambient and the main key lighting fixtures.

Twelve FORTES were used for the key lighting, with three fixtures each rigged on four ‘ambient’ trusses around the edge of the arena. Eighty Robe LEDBeam 150s were on the rig with 24 on the floor outlining each side of 3 x stairways accessing the stage. The fourth side of the stage was occupied by an accompanying musician who was surrounded by 8 x Pointe luminaires.

Another 32 x LEDBeam 150s on the eight vertical truss fingers and 24 on the ends of the 6 spider legs offered excellent high beams and other eye candy effects. Another 24 x LEDBeam 350s were deployed on the left and right ambient trusses.

Six MegaPointes on each of the spider legs were outrigged on pipes, part of 72 of these fixtures. Forty‐eight MegaPointes in total were used at the top of the eight spider legs ‐ 6 per leg ‐ and another twenty‐four ‐ 6‐a‐side ‐ on the four sides of the 10‐metre box truss. The balance of 32 x Pointes were used on the 4 x ambient / audience trusses, 8 units on each truss, with 59 x ParFect 100s for truss toners covering all the fingers and ‘spider’ legs.

Sixteen Robe PAINTES were positioned on the floor around the stage. A total of 63 Robe Spiider LED wash beams were utilised – Crt loves the colours and colour mixing – running in three different modes, with 5 each around the sides of the smaller square truss, three covering the top section of each ‘spider’ leg, one as static back light for guest musicians, and 16 on the front and back ambient trusses for audience lighting.

The final two were ensconced under the stage. The PATT 2013s were positioned on the end of the legs in the higher position, with some similar looking scenic fixtures at the bottom of the fingers.

Everyone was very proud to deliver an outstanding show which received rave reviews. “The team from Event Lighting were amazing,” declared Crt, “they went all out to ensure that I had everything I needed and that it ran smoothly on site.” Drawing the design is one thing but bringing it to life is another. “Nothing would have happened without some amazing people and companies involved,” he commented. “Rok Ložar from B‐Projekt was the production manager co‐ ordinating the teams to make this event happen. Mitja Zupančič, who knows the arena inside out, created very precise rigging plots and minutely detailed rigging logistics so that the Prozvok riggers could build and install the rigging and trussing accurately.” On top of this, Andrej Testen, a crew chief from Event Lighting, assembled a top team to put the whole lighting system together. “We did not have a single fixture problem on the event,” concluded Crt.

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Photo © Jani Ugrin