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Marcus Pugh chooses Robe for Equitana in Melbourne

Equitana is a four-day equine event staged every two years at Melbourne Showground in Australia. Marcus Pugh, lighting designer and technical producer for the GTR-organized event, specified Robe Esprites and MegaPointes as primary moving lights on his lighting scheme for the 2022 “Mane Event”, staged on the Mane Stage of the Grand Pavilion venue.

Pugh also lit this show in 2018 (the 2020 edition had to be cancelled due to COVID), but in a different venue. The Grand Pavilion is a 89 ft high 6-pole “big top” style tensile membrane structure which is the Showgrounds’ centrepiece. In this case, a 70 x 30 metre sand arena was created inside to accommodate all the horse activities.

Pugh worked closely with Melbourne-based rental specialist Harry the Hirer Productions, who provided all the lighting, audio, vision, staging and rigging equipment. They designed a custom bridling system which has been engineered to take enormous horizontal loads off the king and queen poles which enabled the installation of trusses spanning the 36 metres between the poles, plus a large central four-sided LED.

A diversity of lighting hardware was used including around 150 moving lights of which the 24 x Robe Esprites and 18 x MegaPointes were the “workhorse” fixtures, rigged prominently in the side trusses between the king and queen poles. The Esprites were used for highlighting and texturing parts of the arena and for throwing projections onto the tent skins.

Four additional Esprites were deployed on the two RoboSpot systems - two per BaseStation - offering scope to follow what were often extremely fast-moving targets with horses galloping around the arena. The RoboSpot Esprites were rigged on special trusses attached to the main tent poles, and when not being used for following, were repurposed for other tasks while lighting the main show. The operators were located backstage.

The MegaPointes were all on the side trusses, rigged between the big top’s king and queen poles. In addition to rigging, other galvanising aspects of the event included creating an even white wash over the whole performance space for the competition segments of the show.

Care had to be taken in directional lighting so as not to spook the horses, and the same went for sudden movements and flashing which had to be introduced at exactly the right moments to work as a theatrical effect whilst ensuring the horses were comfortable. Pugh was mindful of all these demands during programming, plus the positioning of lights not to catch any of the equine stars in the eyes. Mane Event’s technical planning also allowed time for the horses to be introduced and acclimatised to the show arena, complete with lighting, sound, and video.

Pugh designed and managed the lighting, audio and video systems with GrandMA 3 programming by Cam McKaige and Chad Spenser.

(Photos: Katelyn Nash)

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