Anirudh in the RoboSpot light in Chennai

Indian superstar Anirudh recently played an incendiary homecoming show as the grand finale to his “Hukum” world tour, staged at a special site in Kuvathur on the East Coast Road (ECR) in Chennai, India, complete with a spectacular lighting design by Bala Subramanya (Vinod), Albin Biju and Guru Somayaji from Bangalore-based design studio, 369 Design Lab.

It was the first time that Robe iFORTE LTX Follow Spots – running on RoboSpot remote following systems – were used for a live music show in India.

The RoboSpot system – six iFORTE LTXs and four BaseStations – was supplied to Anirudh’s production and the show’s main lighting contractor, Bangalore-based Reynolds, by SSL Media from Mumbai. Guru and Vinod were hugely excited to be using the system for the first time in this context and to be trailblazing such technology in India.

They had pushed to get the iFORTES and the RoboSpot system on to the show, as they really needed a super powerful follow spotting solution to cover the long throws around the site, as well as fixtures that could hit the main stage and the B-stage with ease. The flexibility of RoboSpot made it a perfect choice.

Wrapping up the “Hukum” tour – which started in February 2024 at Dubai’s Coca-Cola Dome – in Chennai (also his hometown) meant expectations were sky high for a memorable and magical production, and everyone on the crew and creative team worked tirelessly and diligently to ensure that Anirudh fans were treated to a night to remember.

Vinod has worked as the artist’s LD since 2020, and for this tour, 369 Design Lab’s Albin Biju was the assistant LD, also running and integrating lasers into the show. In addition to co-ordinating all the lighting, Vinod and Guru liaised with the various other visual disciplines involved, including Pixadoo who took care of all things video, the centerpiece of which was a large 144 ft wide LED screen filled with cool bespoke content.

This massive screen was also a starting point for the lighting design, explained Guru, stating that all three of them at 369 Design Lab like specifying Robe products whenever possible. MegaPointes, Spiiders, BMFLs, Tetra2s and TetraXs are frequently on their designs, and they think the brand is “reliable and solid”.

They had been wanting to use iFORTE LTXs for a while and jumped at the chance to get them in for this show with its demanding long-throw follow spotting requirements.

The six iFORTE LTX fixtures were deployed on four delay towers left and right of the stage, one each on the outer pair of towers and two each on the inner towers.

These effortlessly beamed across the substantial throw distances to stage B, which was right in the middle of the concert ground, and they were also highly effective despite the brightness of the LED screen.

“The power, focus and sharpness of the zoom even when very tight is really impressive,” notes Vinod, with Guru adding, “It was fantastic to be able to hit that B stage from almost 200 ft away and for the beams to keep a super-sharp focus, even when tightly zoomed in!”

One song – “Pathikichu” – was lit completely in red, and even with this concentration of deeply saturated colour, the iFORTE LTXs shone through and picked up the artist with no issues.

Albin – who was calling the spots while Vinod ran the console – highlighted that they wanted to have the four spot ops nearby at FOH so they could audibly hear the cues if necessary… without him having to try and make himself heard over the cans – which can be noisy and mushy, especially for a highly animated show.

This close proximity also allowed Albin to develop a semaphore (hand signal) system for the follow spot ops as backup – a great testament to the practicality of Indian can-do thinking.

Guru and Vinod were delighted with the results. “The organisers and producers could also clearly see the difference in quality of the light in the artist, and they appreciated why we insisted on having them for this epic show,” Guru concluded.

Five manual follow spots were on standby to also cover the stage if needed, but only one was utilised as the RoboSpots proved so efficient.

The biggest overall challenge for the show was the rain – it was still Monsoon season in India – and 24 valuable hours of on-site prep and programming time were lost due to torrential downpours… but everyone pulled together in a superlative team effort to ensure that Anirudh’s end-of-tour show was filled with a host of visual surprises and sent the audience away with long-lasting memories of a brilliant performance and an unforgettable night out.

Photo credit: Irshad Pookollathur.