Dalhalla, a unique open-air amphitheatre set in the former Draggängarna limestone quarry in central Sweden, is arguably one of the coolest and most interesting live music venues in Europe, popular for its summer seasons featuring a range of music and artists – rock and pop, musicals and sometimes opera performances.
The venue invested in 20 new Robe iFORTE moving lights, delivered for its 2025 season which has just concluded. These are a well-received technical upgrade and have been used to great effect to illuminate artists and delight audiences over the summer, explained the venue’s head of technical, Anders ‘Hebbe’ Herbertzon.
The new iFORTES have replaced 18 x Robe MMX Spots that had been in service since 2012. Still going strong, these are now redeployed in another venue operated by Dalhalla’s management company, Rättvik Event in nearby Falun, which runs for the winter season.
Dalhalla still has 12 of Robe’s first generation of LED theatre luminaires – DLS Profiles – on the front truss of its main house rig of nearly 200 fixtures, which were purchased in 2014 and are also still running well, having clocked up some serious hours!
Before this, they utilised other classic Robe products – like ColorSpot 2500s and ColorWash 1200s and LEDWash 600s – all of which are also still working, now installed in a local hockey arena, and there’s a small club venue with old Robe ColorWash 250s that are still looking good – and currently well-priced bulbs can still be sourced for them!
So, there is a long history with Robe and many examples of the products being extremely reliable and fantastic value.
Hebbe personally had always liked the BMFL very much, especially for the power and the gobo, and all of this led them back to looking at Robe again for this latest technical upgrade.
“We just know that Robe works and goes on working, so that’s a very good start for any investment; you know that they will be long-term and very stable,” he noted.
Last year and in 2023, Dalhalla rented in iFORTES, mainly to illuminate the environment – the dramatic sheer 60-metre drop quarry walls and its turquoise base lake – for specific shows. The venue is 400 metres long, and 175 wide, so serious brightness was needed to cover all of this, and iFORTES proved extremely effective.
Having seen them in action, Hebbe and the team appreciated first-hand the brightness and other features and benefited from that hands-on experience with the fixtures and what they could achieve.
“We needed bright, versatile, robust, IP-rated fixtures and iFORTE ticked all the boxes,” he stated.
They additionally consulted various visiting lighting designers before making the final decision, and “iFORTE just kept coming up repeatedly in conversations.”
Apart from the power and quality of light, people liked the gobos and framing shutters, and they were seeing it frequently appearing as a first choice on technical riders. “All of this additional research underscored our own thoughts and experiences,” Hebbe said, “iFORTE was a clear choice.”
Brightness was top of the list. Dalhalla’s current roof was installed in 2009 and provides a decent amount of shade during the daylight, so onstage illumination is important for all productions. The sun sets around 11 p.m. for most of the summer months, so effectively the whole season is ‘daylight’ shows!
The new iFORTES were delivered to Dalhalla by Robe’s Swedish distributor, Bellalite, who are always on hand to offer great support and backup if needed.
While Hebbe is super happy with the new iFORTES, he also recalls the previous MMX Spots with great fondness – as do many, especially in certain regions like Scandinavia and the Balkans – and the fact that at the time, they were also the brightest available options. “They also had an excellent gobo set and they were quiet,” he muses.
Talking about Robe generally, Hebbe thinks the manufacturer is “always striving to be innovative and bring great quality and reliability to the market.”
So far, the new iFORTES have been utilised as part of the upstage house lighting system which is used by most artists playing Dalhalla. If needed to light the quarry, they can be de-rigged and repositioned to illuminate the vast limestone walls.
Technical production for all Dalhalla concerts is co-ordinated by a team of 8 led by Hebbe, and since 2022, the technical equipment has been fully owned by the venue.
The fantastic 4800-6500 capacity venue – depending on standing / seating configuration – is renowned for its amazing acoustics as well as the stunning natural setting. It is located about 7 km north of Lake Siljan and Rättvik in Sweden’s Dalarna region. The quarry ceased limestone mining operations in 1990 and its conversion into an event space started in 1994, a passion project driven by the late opera singer and cultural visionary, Margareta Dellefors, who died last year aged 98.
