Focus Group introduces the advantages of robotic lighting in the theater

With more than thirty years of experience, This company is a benchmark in the performing arts sector and the main private operator in four theaters in Barcelona and one in Madrid.

As programming manager for four theaters, like the Condal Theater, Romea Theatre, Villarroel Room and Goya Theater (in Barcelona) and the La Latina Theater (in Madrid), Focus Group has developed a project - called Onyric-, which has as its protagonist the first of these performing centers to turn it into 'the house of the musical'.

So, and with the experience of managing the Condal Theater for twenty years, The company is not only betting on this project because of its specialization and exclusive dedication to musicals., but in changing the way of thinking and designing the lighting of this type of shows.

Many illuminators are not used to handling robotic systems in the theater, but little by little these types of lights are being introduced in an environment where cuts, gelatins and dimmers have been the fundamental elements.

According to Xavi Costas, member of the Association of Illumination Authors (AAI) and lighting designer, “Robotics offers a versatility that cannot be left aside”, so he is a defender of these systems in the design of shows and breaking the 'old school' schemes, in which theater lighting tends to be very traditional.

So, the professional tandem formed by Xavi Costas and Moi Cuenca, Focus Group technical director, technology has been selected Martin Lighting (brand that sells Sea sound in the Iberian market), taking into account the quality level of the light, equipment reliability, the various options it offers and the prestige accompanies this brand, to which is added the technical support provided for a long time by Eduard Muñoz who, as Costas states, “He is a problem solver.”.

Other valued elements of Martin systems, in this case by Moi Cuenca, It is your traditional incandescent lamp and Led technology. “Sometimes, the traditional lamp is visually important, what we call filament vision, so a combination of both types of lighting is good”.

At the moment, The Condal Theater has a fixed supply of Martin lighting equipment made up of twelve MAC Encore Performance Cld; doce Rush MH 7 Hybrid and equal number of MAC Aura XB, in addition to an M1HD system and another Mtouch as backup.

An example of the effectiveness of the use of robotic lighting in the performing arts is the design carried out in this sense by Xavi Costas for the musical Fun Home, which premiered in September of last year and is nominated as a finalist for best lighting at the Musical Theater Awards 2019.

In this work the MAC Encore Performance are used, “to recreate on the scenery the various frames of the protagonist's drawings (Alison), generating perfect vignettes thanks to the definition and cropping possibilities of these systems”, explains Costas.

The Par Zoom Rush were also used to ensure the lighting base of the entire show and create atmospheres with the color range agreed upon with the art direction..

At the moment, the bet is the musical Rent, focused on the struggle of a group of young people who face each other in the 90 to a disease as feared and unknown at that time as AIDS. In this work, MAC Encore Performance systems are combined, By Zoom Rush and MAC Aura, creating color environments to define the various spaces imagined on the same set design.