One of Berlin’s most iconic venues, the Friedrichstadt-Palast, also known as Palast Berlin, a revue theatre located in the city’s Mitte district, has made a significant investment in Robe moving lights.
The aim of this investment is to support the newly premiered Grand Show, BLINDED by DELIGHT, created by Oliver Hoppmann and accompanied by a vibrant lighting design by Chris Moylan of Sunrise Studios.
The venue now features almost 300 Robe fixtures in its lighting system, including 54 FORTES, 22 PAINTES, 80 Pointes, 17 MegaPointes, 75 TetraXs, 36 Tetra2s, and 6 ColorStrobes, confirms technical director Thomas Herda, who oversees a technical department of 85 full-time staff responsible for bringing these spectacular Grand Shows to life on stage.
The Friedrichstadt-Palast’s Grand Show and Young Show productions —directed and produced by Dr. Berndt Schmidt— are renewed every two years, driving ongoing investment in the theatre’s core technical equipment, along with some rental systems.
The most recent investments for the Grand Show included the purchase of 75 Robe TetraX fixtures, used as an animated effects matrix on the upstage back wall, positioned behind a transparent LED screen and revealed as an additional layer of visual surprise within Chris’s design. The 22 PAINTES and 36 Tetra2s, supplied to the venue by Robe Germany, are also being used for the first time in this Grand Show.
Thomas has worked at Palast Berlin since 2017 and has served as technical director since 2020, while Chris Moylan has been designing the venue’s lighting since the 2018 Grand Show Vivid.
The vast stage area of the theatre is one of the greatest challenges for any production: it is an expansive space that must be filled with both performers and lighting. Although the budget is reasonable, it is not unlimited, so every fixture must deliver maximum value to the Grand Show.
In BLINDED by DELIGHT, a total of 656 lighting fixtures are used, of which 468 are moving lights, with the remainder comprising a mix of LED and conventional luminaires.
When Chris first began working at Palast Berlin, there were many different types of moving lights installed. Over the years, together with Thomas, he has rationalised and streamlined the inventory, so that today the majority of the fixtures are Robe.
Chris selected the PAINTES for their compact size, which makes them versatile for installation in virtually any location. He had used them before, particularly on board ships, where space is always at a premium.
In recent years, some of the older moving lights at Palast Berlin have been replaced with Robe FORTES, a product Chris knows well. Before making the final choice, he organised a comprehensive shootout with competitor products. The FORTE luminaire proved to be the cleanest option, with the best colour reproduction. Chris appreciates the optics, whites, and front design, and considers it “an excellent all-in-one solution”.
Thomas notes that the addition of the FORTES and other new Robe fixtures to the house rig has also reduced ongoing maintenance requirements. The Pointes were the first Robe fixtures installed at the theatre, and additional units have been added over time following that initial purchase. Today, the venue operates 80 Pointes, which are in constant use, along with 17 MegaPointes.
For BLINDED by DELIGHT, 12 MegaPointes per side are mounted on mobile platforms that move into upstage positions for specific scenes.
Chris’s starting point when lighting a Grand Show is usually the set or production design, created for BLINDED by DELIGHT by Florian Wieder and Cuno von Hahn, with initial input from director and author Oliver Hoppmann. This is also the first time a full LED screen has been used on stage, which influenced the selection and positioning of the luminaires.
With more than 30 scenes and musical numbers, and over 100 performers —including acrobats, aerial artists, and the famous synchronised Palast Berlin kickline— the Grand Show takes audiences on an “emotional journey into the world of dreams and happiness”, within an intense, fast-paced, and highly dynamic environment.
Lighting plays multiple roles: supporting the narrative, illuminating the performers, helping to build drama and visual spectacle, and fulfilling the conceptual goals of the various choreographers involved in this explosion of colour, movement, and energy.
The distribution and positioning of the fixtures was critical to covering stage areas up to 40 metres wide, while carefully balancing choreography space with other technical elements such as the sound system, moving side screens, and set trucks. And, of course, everything had to look spectacular from all 1,899 seats in the theatre.
The TetraX matrix was conceived as a modern reinterpretation of the classic “wall of light”, bringing a contemporary studio aesthetic to a traditional revue environment on a monumental scale. “I wanted to have lighting effects from all angles, just like in a camera environment”, explains Chris, adding that he also needed something that would work with the transparent screen both when it was visible and when it was not.
He was looking for a luminaire versatile enough to create beams, blinder and wash effects, as well as a wide range of kinetic, shimmering, and sparkling textures from a front-mounted position at the rear of the space… and TetraX ticked all the boxes.
As creative planning for a Grand Show begins approximately two years in advance, Chris had already envisioned using TetraX fixtures and later had the opportunity to test them on a club tour with German singer-songwriter Leony, using four columns of TetraX. He was delighted with the results and confident that a large-scale version would deliver the surprise factor required for BLINDED by DELIGHT.
From there, the challenge fell to the ingenuity and skills of Thomas’s team at Palast Berlin, who created the infrastructure needed to fly the 75 TetraX fixtures. They are mounted on five moving frames that can be raised and lowered using special winches, changing the configuration of the matrix, and can also be moved off stage. “They did a brilliant job”, notes Chris.
When the lights are on, the frames are almost invisible, making this enormous wall of luminous movement appear to float magically in mid-air.
The Tetra2 fixtures are installed around the edges of the side screens and move manually together with these structures.
I wanted to accentuate the verticality of the set. From these positions, the Tetra2 battens deliver high-quality effects for audience members seated at the sides, comments Chris.
Chris’s team included lighting programmer and long-time collaborator Matthias Schöffmann. Andreas Schindler was also on site to programme the video, which is triggered from the lighting console. They had an eight-week on-site period to build and refine the Grand Show before a dazzling premiere revealed the fabulous world of BLINDED by DELIGHT during the first week of October.
