The company is headquartered in Belfast and works across all industry sectors from music, concert and touring to corporate events.

Project manager John McGuinness says, "I had been wanting to buy Robes for some time". He had seen them in action on numerous shows and the brand had been highly recommended by a variety of people - from lighting designers to technicians and other rental companies, "Everyone said they were very reliable and that's one of the most important factors for any rental company," he confirms.

He also knew first hand that the service and support from Robe UK would be good, adding, "Apart from that, they came up with a blinding deal!"

Ever since the Robes were delivered, they have been in constant use, and are currently out servicing AVC's very busy summer festival and special event season.

This included the recent Live At The Beach event in Port Rush, County Derry, a single pop-tastic day of fun and entertainment right on the beach, with an outdoor stage and an enthusiastic young audience. This year the line up included  The Wanted, The Saturdays, Alexandra Burke and others, with John as the lighting designer.

"Having the Robes on a gig like this made everything very straightforward," says John, "There are plenty of features and functionality on the 700s to create a high energy show with lots of variety". He is also impressed by the brightness and power, and  with proper darkness only for the final hour of the show, the rig also had to work in the daylight.

Sub hung under the roof were two main 15 metre long trusses -  front and mid - which provided positions for most of the moving lights. On the front were 8 Robe ColorWash 700s, together with blinders and some profiles; on the mid truss were 7 x ColorSpot and 6 ColorWashes and on the back were another 8 of each type of fixture.

The moving lights were used for all the general stage washing band specials, beam work, camera and eye candy and to create big, colourful looks to suit the tone and vibe of the show. It was also important, explains John, to ensure that each of the artists had their own different looks and again, with the Robes at his fingertips, he didn't run out of ideas!

On the floor he positioned another 8 x ColorSpot 700E ATs, four upstage and four across the front of the stage, used for low angle beams and effects.

The trusses were toned with PixelPARs. With no conventional fixtures, he also relied even more on the Robes to lay down his basic washes as well as to add layering effects on top.

John operated the lighting using an Avolites Pearl console.

He likes all the features of the ColorSpot 700 and was initially amazed at how much functionality was packed into one compact sized moving head. He specifically likes the zoom in the Spot, which is highly versatile.

The Robes are working hard as a core element of AVC's hire stock. They have also been on plenty of corporate shows where their quiet running has been a huge benefit. AVC has 4 portable Trailer Stages which are working constantly - providing a fully portable and self contained staging system, complete with an average of 12 moving lights - now Robes.

Robe is a big success story in Ireland, with the two other major hire companies also holding large stocks, which also opens another potential income stream for all as cross rental items.