The press / VIP event took place at the Škoda dealership centre – Aasta Auto Ltd – in Tartu, Estonia’s second city, with technical production coordinated by Andres Sarv of creative visual design and production company Pstudio, and lighting designed by Tõnis Sarv also working for Pstudio.

They work with Robe equipment as often as is possible and, on this occasion, chose to work with 8 x Robe LEDBeam 100s, 12 x LEDWash 800s ,12 x 300E Spots and two CitySkape Xtreme LED floods. Pstudio has been involved with previous Skoda promotional events and delivers technical design and production for other car brands like Audi.

The show involved a presentation element followed by a reveal of the new vehicle, demanding a combination of different styles and approaches, and the creative brief for lighting was left entirely up to Tõnis who created a design that was suitably adaptable and flexible.

The main focus was lighting the cars well, both practically in an exhibition sense and also theatrically for the reveal. Tõnis worked with a creative team from Skoda Estonia who provided the direction and custom video content while Raul Roma supplied the music track.

The central car was placed in front of a large LED screen, flanked by two smaller screens to cover the width of the space, and ensure that the socially distanced audience in the viewing gallery all enjoyed good sightlines.

The LEDBeam 100s were rigged on vertical truss towers either side of the screens, the LEDWash 800s were mounted on floor stands and the 300E Spots were spread out around the showroom balcony providing a second level of lighting which looked very effective.

The CitySkape Extremes were stationed outside lighting the building’s glass frontage.

“Robe fixtures were an absolutely essential component to the show,” commented Tõnis, and while the fixture choice was actually made by Andres – for reliability, versatility and to fit the budget – Tõnis would have made the same selection because he works extensively with Robe for corporate events and also for touring with music artists.

Andres and Tõnis like using Robe luminaires generally for the “quality, smooth movement, excellent choice of ‘clean’ colours and just that great Robe quality that we all love and can rely on.”

He used a ChamSys MQ80 console for lighting and effects control, which in addition to the Robes included low fog machines, strobes, and some battery-powered LED tubes.

Both Andres – who also works as head of technical at Tartu’s Vanemuine Theatre / Concert Hall complex – and Tõnis were delighted at the opportunity of working on a ‘hybrid’ show like this which was live and streamed.

Like everywhere, live and events work has been seriously disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic, although there has been a slow trickle of shows that have started to happen and some theatres have also been able to open and stage performances with limited capacity audiences.

Like everyone, they are looking forward to 2021 and business moving forward and hopefully ramping up after a very tough period.

The world premiere of the Skoda ENYAQ in Prague back in September also featured some Robe moving lights – lighting designer Chris Moylan utilised 54 x MegaPointes and three Robe BMFL Spots on RoboSpot systems to deliver the show in the main hall of the O2 Universum.

Photo Credit: Karl Möls