It was the first time that lighting designer Robert Coia had used Robe’s new ColorWash and ColorSpot 700E AT fixtures on a major show, and also the first event in Australia to utilise Robe’s powerful new ColorSpot 2500E AT units.

Staged in The Palladium at Melbourne’s Crown Casino complex, the 2007 Brownlow Medal dinner was attended by 1500 sporting celebrities and VIPs. It was broadcast live on the country’s Channel Seven TV station, topping the evening’s ratings with an audience of over 1.5 million people.

Coia worked closely with scenic designer/art director Mal Nichols to develop the room’s aesthetics and look for the dinner and award ceremony. Both set and lighting were matched to the room’s neo-deco opulence, which included a series of ornate chandeliers and gold scalloped ceilings.

The stage set was finished in a combination of reflective surfaces and paints that maximised certain lighting effects, and two sets of stairs were internally lit with LED strips.

The Robes were arranged all across a series of room trusses – two running down each side of the space each measured 33 metres and one along the back was 24 metres long. A 9 metre diamond shaped truss was rigged in the centre of the room. Robes were also placed on the 7 FOH and 3 over-stage trusses, and on the floor at the rear of the stage.

The moving lights were used to produce general room looks, for set and stage floor dressing and occasionally for back-lighting of the stage action and the judges panel on stage left.

Selected ColorSpot 700E ATs rigged on the room trusses were also used for close range lighting to highlight specific tables for camera pick-ups throughout the evening. Others made a great job of texturing the walls with soft and subtle gobo looks, “We went for a very warm, intimate feel throughout the room” explains Coia, adding that the CTO filters in the 700s were really helpful, and he generally found the Robe’s to be “Extremely versatile” creative tools.

He also comments that the 700s were the perfect sized fixture for the room which features low headroom. The 700’s zoom facility (6 – 45 degrees in the ColorWash and 15 – 51 degrees in the zoom) was also ideal for enabling wall coverage across three surfaces with about 25 fixtures.

In the Casino’s atrium for the red carpet entrance, 8 Robe ColorSpot 2500E ATs with gobo breakup effects illuminated the huge black marble walls and sweeping staircase leading up to the entrance of the Palladium room.

The Clifton Production’s crew was led by Aaron Humber and Mike Parsons, who were joined by Matt Downes, Dave Richardson and Alex Saad. The get-in started on Friday for a Monday evening show. “Clifton’s were great” enthuses Coia, “They really pulled out all the stops to ensure that we had everything we needed, and that the process was smooth and efficient”.

Cliftons now owns over 500 Robe fixtures, 300 of which were newly purchased this summer. The Melbourne-based company is enjoying a very busy period supplying a wide variety of events, festivals, concert tours and TV productions.

From a technical aspect, Robe’s reliability is a key to this massive investment in the brand, and Parsons adds that Clifton’s receives “Fantastic customer support and attention to detail” from Robe’s Australian distributor, ULA.

In addition to the Robe fixtures, the Brownlow rig included over 150 Multi-PARs and 28 2K fresnels in the Palladium, plus SGM PALCO LED wash lights and another 90 Multi-PARs (also all supplied to Clifton’s by ULA) out in the atrium to illuminate the entrance way. Fixtures from the atrium’s permanent lightshow were also amalgamated with the production rig for the event.

The Brownlow light-show inside the Palladium was run by Andy Edis and Chris Capper, both using GrandMA consoles, together with a Catalyst digital media server driving the onstage LED screen, supplied by Impact Media Images. A third in-house GrandMA was used to control all the room’s permanent lighting elements, including pin spots, table lights and LED fixtures.

The 2007 Brownlow Medal was won by 23-year old Geelong midfielder Jimmy Bartel who proved a very popular choice. Geelong (AKA "The Cats") went on to win the 2007 Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final in Melbourne 4 days later, thrashing opponents Port Adelaide convincingly by 119 points!