The venue is a world class purpose built facility, renowned for its operational and service excellence. It has a comprehensive technical equipment inventory and one of the largest in-house production companies in Queensland.

Immediately that BCEC lighting supervisor Michael Kelly received the green light to buy the latest technology for their moving light stock he proceeded with the purchase of the new Robe 700 series fixtures. It was an "easy" decision he reports, having seen the popularity of the Robe brand, particularly the 700s, grow massively over the last year, bolstered by the fact that they are "Great value for money".

He's impressed generally by the brightness of the light output and comments, "The design is great, specially the way the menus are set up onscreen, which makes everything very easy. Compared to others, the 700 is also a very quiet fixture". This is a consideration for many of the events and presentations they are lighting.

The BCEC technical team also think the fixtures are excellent work-horses after using them on a day-to-day basis. Positive feedback includes comments on the quality of the colour mixing and the strong beam control strong, along with the usefulness of the frost filter, which is ideal for even widening and diffusing of the beam.

The Robe's are primarily used at the BCEC for event staging, and were purchased to offer a comprehensive, professional entertainment lighting rig that is "Versatile and movable" between all their venues. The fixtures are frequently in use at the BCEC's Great Hall, Ballroom and Exhibition Hall spaces.

The first event utilising the complete Robe rig was the Zig Zag Charity Ball in the Great Hall. Eight ColorSpot 700E ATs were positioned on the back truss with 4 onstage. ColorWashes were rigged on the front truss to cover the room and to provide a wash on the upstage cyc. "The impact of using just 2 fixtures on a 25 metre wide by 9 metre high rear cyc was incredible," states Kelly.

A circular truss was flown in the centre of the room, loaded with ColorWash 700s, mirror balls and other moving lights, used to light and project effects onto the dancefloor and around the room. "One ColorWash now achieves the same effect as 4 fresnels previously," explains Kelly.

Lighting operator Michael Hughes adds that the "wide zooms, bright output and variable CTO functions" of both ColorSpot and ColorWash units is a great bonus to the overall flexibility and functionality of their lighting rig.