Teatro Colsubsidio Roberto Arias Perez is a 1,000-seater venue opened in 1981 in central Bogota, Colombia’s vibrant capital city, that has established itself at the centre of quality live entertainment, culture and performing arts. It’s renowned for high production values and imaginative shows, offering a lively mix of concerts, musicals and classical performances.
The theatre has recently purchased its first Robe moving lights – 10 Pointes and 10 Spiiders. Added to the house lighting rig, they have already started making a huge difference to how shows can be lit and presented.
The theatre is owned by a large commercial enterprise and independently run, and the new moving lights were part of a general lighting upgrade that is ongoing to improve the technology and the levels of production on offer.
The upgrade also includes several LED fixtures, and before these new fixtures, they had six older moving lights from another brand, which were removed as soon as the Pointes and Spiiders arrived.
“We specifically wanted lights that would be ideal for lighting the concerts and musical theatre shows,” explained the venue’s head of lighting, Alfonso Ramos, who has been working there since 1982.
“So, we asked the opinions of various lighting designers who we know and work with on incoming shows about what they thought were the best options. Soon enough a pattern started emerging, and that was that many of them were recommending Robe!”
As well as overseeing his busy department, Alfonso also lights any productions that don’t have an LD, so he had a vested interest in having versatile and multipurpose fixtures in the house.
Teatro Colsubsidio stages around 10 – 12 shows per average month, although some shows might run several weeks as a season, other weeks they will have three or four completely different ones.
“When I was using the conventional rig, all I could essentially do with the lighting was create a bit of atmosphere, and for concerts and musicals now, you need to do a whole lot more than that!” Alfonso stated. “So now I can still do all that ‘base’ work, and then add several layers of lighting and effects over the top. Using these fixtures, I can create a complete show with lots of drama and increased dynamic for both audiences and performers.”
Alfonso and his team are very pleased with the results.
The very first LD to use the venue’s new Robes was Humberto Hernandez from AHH, a busy and influential lighting designer working in Colombia and internationally. He has been a big Robe fan for some time and always specifies Robe for his shows when possible.
He came into Teatro Colsubsidio earlier in the year to light a Disney-approved production of Beauty & The Beast, and Robe’s local distributor AV Com Colombia pulled out all the stops to get the lights delivered in time.
Humberto was also one of the influencers who recommended Robe as a good choice for the lighting department’s investment. He himself lights two or three shows a year there and is “very happy” that Robe is now available. He commented with a smile that he’d like to see them add some MegaPointes!
For him, Spiiders are “very flexible and useful for so many things like building atmosphere AND throwing in effects”, and the Pointes are super-fast and an “excellent” option for use as a beam and a spotlight and well as for numerous effects.
His next show in there is the tango opera “Maria de Buenos Aires” and he will also be lighting a Christmas show that premieres in November.
Alfonso also mentioned that another benefit of the new moving lights is that they can turn shows around much quicker and more efficiently as it seriously reduced the amount of time consumed with focusing and gelling the previously primarily generic rig.
