Lisinski Concert Hall invests in Robe lighting

Lisinski Concert Hall is a major venue in Zagreb, Croatia, well known for staging large-scale music shows, conference and congress events. Opened in 1973 and named after Croatian composer Vatroslav Lisinski, it is acclaimed for its acoustic quality, central location, and multi-genre programming across its 1800-capacity main hall and 300-seat small hall.

The venue has been investing in Robe moving lights for around 10 years and now has 20 Spiider LED wash beams, 8 MegaPointes, 12 LEDBeam 350s and four LEDWash 600s in the main hall and 8 LEDBeam 150s in the small hall which are looked after and utilised by a lighting crew of four led by Dubravko Laslavić who has been head of lighting for 25 years.

The Spiiders and the LEDBeam 350s are the most recent purchases, delivered over the last 3 years by Robe’s Croatian distributor, LAV Studio, as part of a technical upgrade to ensure that Lisinski can continue to offer the very best production values for its artists and diverse audience base.

Around 500 shows are staged there over the 10-month annual season with both halls seeing a mix of rock and pop plus classical and orchestral works.

This wide range of performance means that lighting must be flexible and offer plenty of scope.

Lighting technician Dragan Micić came onboard around three and a half years ago, familiar with Robe from his work at Croatia’s National Theatre, so he was delighted when it was  decided to add more Robe to the rig.

“When visiting crews are working here and they see we have Robe on the rig, it’s instantly recognised as a good, solid brand that everyone is happy to use,” he commented.

The main hall is large with a 25 metre wide stage, so brightness was a critical feature when choosing fixtures – a process that also went through a competitive tender process – and silent running was another, especially for the classical shows.

CRI and colour mixing were also looked at and compared between the different options, with Robe coming out on top of all of these.

Reliability was another factor as was the backup and support that they know they can rely on from LAV Studio explained Dragan, who reckons that the Spiider is one of the all-time best LED washes produced to date.

Lighting tech Ivan Ivančević agreed, adding, “The Robe package offered really good value and great all-round performance.” Typically the in-house team will light about two-thirds of the shows presented each season, with the other third bringing in their own lighting designers or directors. “Most people are really happy to see Robe on our specs,” commented Ivan.

In addition to the lighting department having a say in which fixtures were chosen, the venue’s overall head of technical, Nikola Tuškan, was involved, so the decisions were collective and based on the different bids that were presented.

Most of the Robe fixtures stay in place through the season rigged on bars over the stage, and they are also hoping to be able to convert their current floor specials package to include more Robe products.

Photo credit: Louise Stickland.