For the Sydney and Brisbane legs of the tour, the Future Music Stage was operated by Parsons himself throughout the afternoon. Parsons states that “the main hurdle that the lights had to overcome was to cut through the daylight”. As such the lights had to be powerful, and this was the motivation in incorporating the Robe 2500 ColorWash with PC Lens into the rig – which proved prudent – as Parsons states that the “brightness and punch of these fixtures was outstanding”. Parsons goes so far as to say that the “2500’s made the strobes in the rig look like tiny blinking LEDs”.
When the main act, the UK’s Chemical Brothers, kicked off the last spot on the line-up, they did so with their own specific lighting design from Lighting Designer/Operator Ricardo Lorenzini. Phaseshift Productions were brought on board to provide the lighting equipment and consoles for The Chemical Brothers for all of their Australian shows (except Perth). The Chemical Brothers are renowned for their amazing visuals, and brought with them as a feature a Stealth LED Screen measuring a huge 12m x 7.8m, and 2 x 10K full colour lasers.
Phaseshift’s Simon Aitken states that the LD asked for a ‘very punchy wash fixture to project through the Stealth Screen’. This was accomplished by rigging 27 Robe 1200AT ColorWashes behind the screen on angled pods, revealing the lights only during the Chemical Brothers spot. The rest of the rig included 10 iLed StarDrape Panels, as well as other fixtures from Phaseshift’s inventory. Simon states “The Robe 1200 Washes are a great unit and we never had any fuss with them at all throughout all the shows around the country”.
Mischief Stage
For the Melbourne leg of the tour, the Mischief stage was operated by John Stanley of Light and Sound Solutions with gear provided by Clifton Productions. The rig included 8 Robe ColorSpot 700E AT and 6 Robe ColorWash1200E AT. The lighting show was completely operated by E:Cue 3.8 with MM Dongle, Fader unit and Butler. On the performance of the Robe’s, Stanley states “They Robe’s were used due to the fast CMY color mix system and proven reliability. This enables me to produce extremely fast color flicks. I would say that the Robe’s have the fastest CMY on the market.”
Other stages on the Future Music tour that featured Robe’s include the Fan Klub Stage and the Famous Stage with 6 ColorSpot 1200E AT and 6 ColorWash 1200E AT on both rigs. The major Trance stage God’s Kitchen featured 8 Robe Colorspot 700E AT and 8 ColorWash 700E AT, and the innovative Silent Disco featured 4 Colorspot 700E ATs. The Future Funk stage featured 4 ColorSpot 700E ATs, and the very retro Roller Disco had 4 ColorSpot 575E ATs.
Overall, Parsons was very effusive about the reliability and performance of the Robe’s on the Future Music Tour – “I toured the lights from the Brisbane to Sydney gigs and had no hiccups. I took 6 spare fixtures and never even had to take them out of their cases. They withstood everything – rain, heat, dust – no problems.” It seems both the Future Music Festival and the Robe’s proved to be a huge success!
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