Rakvere Theatre is a thriving arts and live performance hot spot in the attractive, compact and culturally significant northeastern Estonian city of Rakvere, around 100 kilometres east of the capital, Tallinn.
The theatre opened in 1940 and offers a lively repertoire of classic, contemporary and experimental works from around the world, including from Estonia’s finest and most acclaimed authors and playwrights.
In the last year, the theatre has invested significantly in new Robe LED moving lights as part of a drive by the Estonian Ministry of Culture to encourage venues to replace their conventional lighting inventories with newer and more sustainable options.
This is an initiative involving 10 major Estonian theatres, of which Rakvere received the largest number of new fixtures, with 50 Robe T1 Profiles, 27 T2 Profiles, 69 Spiider wash beams, 75 LEDBeam 350s, 14 ParFect 150 RGBWs, 16 Tetra2s, 12 TetraXs, 36 T11 Profiles with drop-in gobo and iris modules, and six FOOTSIE2 Slim footlight units.
They also invested in two Robe RoboSpot systems together with one T1 Profile Follow Spot and one T2 Profile Follow Spot.
These luminaires will primarily be distributed between their two main performance spaces – the Large and Small Houses. In addition to operating all of these, Rakvere has a touring company that is on the road in Estonia and sometimes overseas for much of the year, so the place is a busy and interesting production environment.
The new Robe LED fixtures will replace most of their old conventional lights, explained lighting crew members Märt Sell, Martin Piir and Roomet Villau. They all take on multi-tasking roles at Rakvere Theatre, designing lighting for around 90% of shows there, as well as programming, operating and tech’ing, so all are knowledgeable and experienced in multiple areas of lighting.
“We were not required to make the change to LED right now, but it was a good juncture and opportune time for us to do it,” explained Piir.
Discussions among theatres about the overall LED transition process kicked off in Estonia in 2021, and they started discussing what they most needed relative to what was already on the market then … and what the various manufacturers said that they would be launching in the upcoming years.
They also had to amass full data on each old and new product in terms of energy efficiency, as funding for the replacement programme was based on a ‘one-in-one-out’ format for swapping luminaires.
This was a similar process to their last major lighting upgrade in 2012, which saw moving lights added to the house rigs for the first time.
Robe was also part of that earlier deal, with 300E and 600E Spots coming in, and between then and now, more Robe was added to their lighting fleet with LEDWash 300s and 600s and Spiiders, so as a venue, they were already invested and working with Robe, and the crew appreciated the robustness and reliability of the lights.
“These original Robe products have done very well, and we are already familiar with the brand, always a big plus when changing up,” noted Sell, “so it made sense to look at Robe again.”
However, the actual specifications they wrote up were not specific to the brand or manufacturers; they were based on the features they needed most in the fixtures. Rakvere was also lucky in that they received the full allocation of the lights they had requested.
The T1s and T2s were chosen for their shutters, among other features. “We needed them to replace a traditional profile,” said Villau.
“So, this was important – and while it takes more time to initially set up and program moving lights, once that is done, they dramatically improve the flexibility and scope of how we can light all of the productions here.”
Piir added that the quality of light output was another vital characteristic: “On top of that, we thought about the type of lighting that broadcast or streaming shoots need when drawing up the spec.”
The 27 T2s are in the 405-capacity Big House, which has over 100 new fixtures in total, including T1s, Spiiders and LEDBeam 350s.
The Big House and the 104-capacity Small House both have a RoboSpot system each, with the corresponding-sized T1 Profile FS / T2 Profile FS. The three lighting crew members all taught themselves how to use these systems before the new season kicked off.
Their third area is a movie house and event space, with lighting rigged according to each event.
