TAIZHOU, China — The Golden Autumn concert drew about 40,000 people to the TaiZhou Sports Centre Stadium for music and comedy. The televised event was lit by LD Bovey Xie using mix of Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200E ATs — over 100 Robe moving lights in all. Beijing-based rental company Wen Jing Xuan’s Shanghai office supplied the gear and 30 crew members.
Xie used the Robe gear to create bright and lively looks for each of the 12 performances, which included Kelly Chen, Alan Tam, SunNan, JiangKun, and A-Mei.
The 15-meter-wide by 14-meter-deep stage contained a set designed by students of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (Xie’s alma mater), which featured three staircases, different levels of ramps plus scenic elements, as well as a large thrust stage going out into the audience used by all artists.
“It was a big space to fill, and I needed really bright lightsources that would cut through,” said Xie, noting that the Robes had to hold their own against large areas of scenic LED surface integrated into the set.
Xie added that he has used Robes, his moving light of choice since 2006, on many previous shows.
In addition to the brightness, he credited the Robe gear for fast and smooth color mixing and the range and variety of colors and gobos, many of which he put to use during the course of the show. He also credited the fixtures for their reliability.
Sixty of the Robes were hung directly above the stage on a series of trusses flown below the stage roof. They were arranged in 11 upstage/downstage lines for maximum coverage.
To the offstage sides of the back wall, facing forwards, Xie used seven ColorWash fixtures per side, rigged on the scaffolding and used as cross stage fill lighting.
The other 40 units were deployed on the deck and stage floor — along the top of the staircases and ramps, in a straight line across the bottom of the set, and around the edges of the thrust.
These floor-based fixtures added another dimension to the space with their low and mid level positioning, contrasting with the beams and projections of the overhead units.
The layout of the Robe fixtures, combined with a large generic rig primarily rigged down the sides of the scaffolding stage structure, provided good even coverage for the TV shoot and plenty of drama and glitz for the live audience.
The light-colored stage surface was well-suited for gobo projections, and Xie used them to accent the mood of the more subtle and moody songs. He lit over 20 large production numbers for the show, many with dancers, along with four comedy acts.
The load-in began five days before the show, and the full stage needed to be built from the ground up. This left Xie just two nights for programming — a task he completed using an Avolites Pearl console.
Xie noted that the Robes were very “quick and easy” to program and commended the gear once more for its reliability.
For more information, please visit www.robe.cz.
