Over 100 Robe Show Lighting ColorSpot 2500E AT fixtures were specified by lighting designer Fabrice Delmontel for the massive Peugeot stand at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show.

These were purchased specially for the event by Impact Evenement from Longjumeau, France, who supplied all lighting, sound and AV for the impressive 4000 square metre stand in Hall 6 of Palexpo in Geneva, Switzerland.

Geneva is one of the premier Motor Shows on the circuit, and the design of the stands and presentation of the vehicles is absolutely crucial - and almost as competitive as the products themselves!

Fabrice Delmontel worked closely with Peugeot’s team of stand and car designers on the project, and also with Stephane Fleury, Impact Evenement’s Technical Manager. He explains that the car and stand design teams both have very different agendas in terms of aesthetics, but all of them are working to the ultimate goal of having the best presented stand in the hall, showing the products literally ‘in the best light’!

Peugeot’s theme this year centred around the environment and keeping the process of manufacturing and running a car as green and environmentally-friendly as possible, so the stand featured lots of grass and plants. They also wanted the lighting to emulate the clean, stylish look of the stand. “The cars had to be well lit, yet the space around them needed to feel cozy and comfortable for people looking at and examining the vehicles” explains Delmontel.

He has used Robe products before – ColorSpot and Wash 575 ATs and 1200 ATs – but this was the first time he had used the newly available, much larger and very powerful ColorSpot 2500 AT.

With the majority of the trusses trimmed at 16 metres at Palexpo - high for an exhibition hall – he needed fixtures with real power and the punch to cut right through from that height and to produce at least 4000 Lux on the stand.

One hundred and fourteen ColorSpot 2500E ATs were rigged on overhead trusses all around the stand – representing a massive investment for Impact Evenement, who’s Fleury comments, “We already have several hundred Robe fixtures in our hire stock, and this was an ideal opportunity to buy the new ColorSpot 2500E ATs. Robe products are extremely reliable and very versatile and I am confident we will have plenty of work for the 2500s”.

Delmontel used the ColorSport 2500E ATs in a slightly unusual way – they were de-focussed – for a diffused effect – and then pointed at the cars that were located all over the stand. “This worked absolutely beautifully and gave us the precise quality of very bright light that I wanted” he says. They were used either in white or with CTO filtering, and produced in excess of 4500 Lux on reaching the products. “There is no other fixture in such a compact housing that could produce this amount of intensity at that distance”.

He’s also found the indexable gobos a real asset. Some custom rectangular gobos were made for the show, and used to frame and fit the cars exactly. “It’s very good to have this very accurate option available – specially with the lightsources as high as 16 meters” he adds.

In addition to the ColorSpot 2500E ATs, he utilised 31 ColorWash 1200 ATs for back lighting two walls made from screen material in blue. He ‘auditioned’ three different types of fixtures for this job, and Robe was selected because “It made the best rich, deep, electric blue – it worked perfectly”

In addition to these, there were 16 of the new Robe ColorWash 250 ATs rigged around a low ceiling enclosure above the new and featured Peugeot 207 on a revolving plinth. Every few minutes, bursts of smoke billowed from below the car and were coloured by the ColorWash 250 ATs programmed into a chase.

All Peugeot stand lighting was controlled from a GrandMA console.