Robe, and its associated businesses, enjoyed a busy ISE 2025 expo in Barcelona, presenting their largest stand to date in Hall 6, launching two exciting new products – the iSTROBE and the iESPRITE LTL – and showing a range of other new technologies as well as staging a high-octane one-person live show with gravity-challenging acrobat Oskar Skrypko.
Robe CEO Josef Valchar commented, “ISE has definitely established itself as a majorEuropean trade show for lighting manufacturers and has made great efforts to ensure we can present our products in the right environment. That’s why we launched innovative new tech there this year – with fantastic results. We look forward to 2026 already – with BIG plans!”
Visitors from all over the world rocked up to the stand from every sector, and many also visited the nearby EES/EARPRO (Robe’s Spanish and Portuguese distributor) showroom, which was set up for full-scale product demos.
An on-booth demo area was busy throughout all four days of the expo, and Robe’s booth incorporated all its businesses – Avolites, Anolis, LSC Control Systems and Artistic Licence – in one designed and fully aligned branded environment.
Robe’s iSTROBE, 4-in-1 approach makes it a flexible unit with a RGBW wash element that can be a strobe, a wash, a blinder and an effects light delivering a 1000W of strobe power.
Three independent zoom modules in an IP rated body bring more possibilities than ever to creative minds and ensure the unit can be an authentic wash. While pixel control is an industry standard on these types of units, Robe’s genius R&D team has added 1000W of warm white and amber LEDs into the central optical module so iSTROBE can also be used as a classic ‘blinder’, thanks to the tungsten emulation feature of this module.
The iESPRITE LTL attracted massive interest due to its combination of the best iFORTE LTX and iESPRITE features.
Robe launched its much-anticipated LEDPointe at LDI last year and this was another ‘hot’ fixture on the ISE booth as European customers saw it in action for the first time. This fixture offers multifunctional characteristics and a homogenised output so it can be a proper beam, a spot, an effects source or a wash luminaire.
Those curious about comparisons between the LEDPointe and the classic lamp-based Pointe and MegaPointe fixtures could see these side by side in the offsite demo area. They were impressed by the quality and intensity of the light output and the tight, crisp beam definition of the LEDPointe.
Other new products thrilling visitors included the SVB1 4Bar – a prewired and pre-rigged solution for fast installation and setup, and the T31 CYC – a compact cyc unit with high quality optics, ideal for the smooth and even illumination of curved cycloramas.
A live performance act was specially devised for ISE this year by Robe’s in-house creative team. It is the first time Robe has staged a live show at this exhibition and it was designed specifically to show all the different lighting technologies working in a real-time real-world scenario.
The four and a half-minute performance played five times a day and involved Skrypko, his Chinese Pole and some truly interactive lighting and effects, with the new iSTROBE and SVB1 fixtures – following a narrative of Oskar trying to ‘tame’ the pole to catapult himself back to the Fifth Dimension (the live show is part of a trilogy that will be concluded at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt in April).
The acrobatics took place right in the middle of the stand, packing an already busy booth to the max, lit with approximately 170 different Robe fixtures coming in from all directions, programmed and run on an Avolites D9 console, with an Avo AI Q3Pro media server for the bespoke show video content playing on the LED screen at the back, also produced in-house.
The new iESPRITE LTL also played a prominent role in lighting Skrypko, illustrating its brightness against the LED screen.
Robe T15 Fresnels on Pantographs and the new Robe T.5 Profile assisted with the general stage wash and breakup gobos highlighting the between-show looks. The Fifth Dimension also illustrated how Robe’s powerful iBOLT can be safely and smartly used for effects and illuminating in indoor spaces, and for the first time, FOOTSIE2 fixtures on the stage floor in the footlight positions were pixel mapped and zoned via a RoboSpot system during Skrypko’s performance.
The live shows were interspersed with Robe’s well known and informative VOG (Voice of God) product presentations, and the LED screen was a major part of the booth design, utilised for clear infographics related to Robe, the product presentations and the general stand action.
The Czech Republic-based manufacturer has already committed to a larger booth for ISE 2026.
Anolis, Robe’s architectural LED lighting division, occupied a new-look section of the booth and showcased its products designed to enhance any building or space, exterior or interior.
Catching the eyes of visitors were Anolis’s Agame window reveal luminaire which was appropriately and realistically showcased via a recessed window frame on the booth. The Agame is specifically crafted to accentuate the perimeters of windows and arches with its 180° beam. The Agame range is also a quality multifunctional lighting solution.
The Anolis Lyrae M offering power and colour mixing and motorised tilt controlled via DMX was a ‘wow’ feature for many customers, while the whole Lyrae range (XS Fix, XS, S, M) offers powerful high light output LEDs available with a variety of optics, from narrow to wide, in addition to a bi-symmetrical option. The light source can be remotely tilted 25° from the horizontal position for accurate illumination of the selected surface.
The Anolis team had a busy show, commenting that the scale of the expo brought numerous people from multiple sectors to the booth, especially during the first two days in an overall “excellent experience”.
Avolites experienced a fantastic show and were busy engaging with quality customers and end users from all around the world, and Paul Wong and the team leveraged the great opportunities both on the show floor and around Barcelona in the evenings for business, and more importantly strengthening relationships and creating new ones.
A steady stream of positive feedback flowed regarding the latest products including the T3 which is also very affordable, without compromising on quality or reliability which connects to a laptop offering faders, backlit programming keys, encoders and 16 universes of DMX out.
Both Diamond7 consoles, the 215 and the 330 variants, attracted plenty of attention with their great balance of power, ergonomic front panel controls, touchscreens and portability – the D7-215 fits into a 1615 Peli-Air Case for flying on the plane.
These two consoles expand Avolites’ reach for delivering lighting control for the largest and most complex shows, complementing the already hugely popular Quartz, Tiger Touch II and Arena consoles.
Jon Hole, Avolites’ new Product Manager commented, “ISE was a fantastic opportunity for me to meet the worldwide family of users and customers, each one dedicated to the ‘Avo life’! We showed our increasingly wide range of consoles, from T3 and Quartz all the way up to Arena and Diamond series, each demonstrating the fusion of lighting and video control via ‘Synergy’ – Avo’s unique integration system that streamlines the workflow of all visual elements on stage.”
Managing Director Paul Wong noted, “ISE 2025 didn’t disappoint, it proved another excellent opportunity to meet many different people, and it was great to feel the enthusiasm of both new and existing Avo users for the products on the stand. It was yet another perfectopportunity to gain their comments and feedback which is vital to ensure we continue our projected growth trajectory.”
The team from LSC Control Systems celebrated what they reckon was not only the best ISE exhibition to date – but their most successful international trade show for many years.
“This was well organised and incredibly busy,” said Pete Floyd, LSC’s international sales manager. “I can happily say that, finally, the international trade show is back! We saw visitors from all around the world, the first time we’ve truly seen this since the early 2000s.”
Australia-based LSC, which became part of the Robe Group last year, produces reliable and rock-solid products for leading theatres, opera houses, theme parks and television studios worldwide. Generally, there is an increasing realisation that clean, reliable power and proper protection is essential for valuable equipment.
At ISE, the LSC team was full-on with visitors seeking demos of these popular systems. Both UNITY and UNITOUR were a huge attraction, with demos non-stop throughout.
The biggest interest was from AV companies savvy about safeguarding their LED walls, whilst also being able to monitor and configure their systems remotely. The importance of dropped neutral protection, earth leakage monitoring per channel and voltage/current monitoring also play a role in ensuring shows are delivered without any technical power issues.
Floyd concluded, “It really is a world-class show! The four days left everyone exhausted and with a mountain of quotations to generate! The expo truly served its purpose. Thank you, ISE – see you next year!”
Artistic Licence also had a busy four days connecting with a huge number of their global distributors and partners and meeting new customers looking to specify its control products.
Products in the limelight included the new artCore replay and integration controller and the artPlay 10” touchscreen controller, which were “absolute hits with our colleagues, distributors and customers,” explained Artistic Licence product application specialist, Tim Smith.
Both enable control of architectural lighting installations avoiding any complex, costly or proprietary software, offering of a truly flexible and scalable solution that can be applied to numerous lighting control scenarios.
artPlay for any performance space, house of worship or any space where simple and intuitive, non-technical control is needed, while artCore offers a simple and efficient approach to standalone or networked control of facades, landscapes and a diversity of environments where integration of lighting with other systems is necessary.
The formal launch of these products will be in the coming months.
“It was fantastic to connect with such a wide range of customers and friends face to face, and we are already looking forward to next year, when we plan to showcase even more cutting-edge lighting control developments,” concluded Smith.
