UK – Robe Lighting was proud to be the production lighting supplier for the TPi Awards 2026, staged at Evolution in Battersea, London, UK, and once again ensured that the room shimmered with colour, vibrance and style that helped rock the glamour for one of the production entertainment industry’s BIGGEST nights of the year!
This year was extra special and sparkly, as the TPi Awards celebrated its landmark 25th anniversary – a truly ‘silver’ achievement of the event organised by TPi Magazine, part of Mondiale Technology Media.
Over 300 Robe lighting fixtures were on the lighting rig, designed and curated especially for the room by Robe’s in-house creative team led by lighting director Nathan Wan, working closely with associate LD Andy Webb to deliver lighting based on a sparkly glitterball-tastic theme.
The TPi Awards celebrate some of the best creative and technical accomplishments from the past 12 months around the globe in the wonderful world of entertainment production, and for the third consecutive year, were presented by popular comedian Emmanuel Sonubi.
In The Main
The primary task of lighting in the main room was to produce a look and style to impress the nearly 2000 industry professionals gathered there.
The glittering silver inspired lighting design wowed crowds using some of Robe’s newest technologies and harmonised with video content created by Observatory that appeared on a massive LED screen.
Andy produced the music track in conjunction with the TPi team – led by TPi Magazine’s commercial director Fran Begaj – whilst Nathan and the rest of the team were pre-vizzing the lighting using Capture in the week ahead of the event.
They were supported by a crew of seven NRG (Next Robe Generation) students picked from four different colleges around the UK.
The large screen filled the full width of the room and wrapped around the edges – the idea being that guests felt immersed inside a giant mirror ball, and this was one of the starting points for the lighting. “We needed lots of bright and very dynamic fixtures to make sure they shone through all of that massive screen light,” the Robe team explained.
The idea was to make the just-launched GigaPointe – a super-bright, multifunctional, laser light source product – prominent on the rig and especially during the hi-energy 1 minute and 10 second visual spectacle that signals the start of the Awards ceremony, so a letterbox element was built into the screen at the back of the stage and filled with 23 x GigaPointes.
Another 8 x GigaPointes were dotted along the back of the stage and around the sides at floor level, and 40 in total were used for the show.
70 x SVB1s – a multisource effect, beam and wash luminaire – were dotted around all over the rig. They are currently a favourite for their versatility and compact form, and these were spread out over the venue’s various roof trusses with some on the deck. They are a perfect fixture for creating twinkling eye candy looks.
16 x SVB1 4Bars were mounted on the top part of the curved screen trusses to highlight the screen, accenting the depth it brought to the space and also the curve of the screen, which was such a defining set piece of the room.
As the video screen consumed a lot of infrastructure over the stage area, there were fewer positions available here for lighting, so Nathan had to think smartly about where to place lights for maximum effect.
32 x iESPRITE LTL fixtures were used extensively on the advanced trusses above the room, where they were ideal for creating special effects, dappling and texturing around the space, together with a total of 40 of Robe’s compact iPAINTE LTM wash beams.
Also on the rig were 12 x SVOPATTS for eye candy and to add depth to the stage for that iconic retro light curtain look.
Out-of-the-Box
Thinking out of the box, the design objective was to show off the flexibility of all these Robe fixtures, so the 36 x WTF! strobe / floods were utilised as the main wash lighting fixtures, as well as for a few retinal surprise moments!
This was to illustrate how functional and efficient they were in an asymmetrical flood role, a sharp move that also means they looked great for general eye candy looks and specials.
While guests were eating their dinner, the WTF!s washed and illuminated the tables beautifully and seamlessly, maintaining a nice ambience for this segment of the evening, ensuring it was atmospheric and comfortable for socialising … while enabling people to see what they were consuming!
Onstage key lighting for the awards presentations and general front lighting was provided by a combination of seven T1 and T2 Profiles also rigged on the front trusses.
Prominent on the design were 10 x iBOLTS in the room, 4 in the roof trusses and 6 on three podiums a side used for all the hi-impact effects looks, especially during the time coded intro that kicked off the awards presentation segment.
They were also used to zap a 2-metre mirror ball rigged 20 ft into the main room.
This was done to illustrate just how safely and effectively iBOLTS can be used as part of an indoor show with the highly innovative ScanGuard system.
This is a patented Robe geo-fencing system, incorporating LIDAR technology to scan the surrounding area, identifying and locking out unsafe zones. If an object encroaches within a safe working distance, the system automatically cuts the fixture output to prevent accidents.
6 x iFORTE LTX FS follow spots running on 6 x RoboSpot systems were sited around the room perimeter, used for the presenters and all the awards pick-ups – a very fast-moving part of the evening where being quick and accurate is essential to identify and pick up the winner before they walk to the stage.
A Lot of Balls!
The Bar centrepiece was a multiple mirror ball installation with around 30 balls, hung at different heights and running at different rotational speeds, which looked extremely cool and emphasised the fun of the evening as well as the serious professional achievements being honoured.
The balls were well illuminated with a combination of the remainder of the GigaPointes, plus 16 x LEDBeam 350s and 20 x LedPOINTES rigged on a surrounding central box truss that was also part of the installation. This provided an eye-catching, intimate and clubby atmos for incoming guests as well as a great background for SoMe snaps.
The Robe team also lit the upstairs VIP area.
Outsiders
For the last few years, the lighting brief has been extended to include some WOW factors outside the Evolution venue to ramp up the excitement as guests arrive.
This year, the installation featured 9 x iBOLTS, together with 6 x WTF!s used as asymmetrical floods to light up some parked up trucks from ETL Logistics and Trucking By.
These fixtures are also IP rated and wireless for outdoor use, but this year, rain and bad weather were thankfully not an issue.
In Control
The main room light show was programmed and controlled via an Avolites D9-215 console, with another for ‘hot’ backup, and an Avolites D7-215 was used for the bar area, with another D7-215 for the exterior installation.
From the NRG crew, Daniel Nunn, a third year Event Production student at Nottingham Trent University, was assistant lighting designer in the main room.
Jamie Mather, a second year Event Production Technology student, also at Nottingham Trent University, was overseeing lights in the TPi bar area. Annie Francis – completing the 3rd year of a Live Event Production course at the Academy of Live Technology in Wakefield – co-ordinated and ran lighting for Robe’s VIP area upstairs. Tom Skinner, a Live Event Production finalist, also at the Academy of Live Technology, was LD for the exterior courtyard installation
Jamie, Annie and Tom also operated RoboSpots for the main show, joined by three more NRG RoboSpotters – Abby Wills in the midst of her second year studying Technology & Management at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland; Gabriel Reis, a second year film lighting student at Falmouth University, and Kayleigh Brown in her second year at Nottingham Trent University on the Event Production course.
Rising to the Occasion
The usual challenges applied, with a very short amount of time on site. The get-in commenced on the Sunday morning, so they had one furious night of on-site programming to be ready for 3 p.m. rehearsals on Monday. While pre-vizzing is a massively useful tool that can really move things along, there’s an amount of finessing that can only be done on site.
This was coupled with the pressure of making it look good for an acutely switched on peer group audience … all involved with staging some of the most incredible world-class shows, events and tours on the planet – and with exceptionally high expectations!
Once again, the entire Robe team – UK and international – was delighted to be an integral part of delivering this superlative event.
Lighting Designer of the Year Award
The 2026 TPi Award for ‘Lighting Designer of the Year’ was again sponsored by Robe and this year won by Matt Pittman, founder and lead creative of design studio Pixelmappers. Matt’s recent work has included the impressive lighting and production design for Dua Lipa’s 2025 Radical Optimism world tour and tours for Deftones, Disclosure, Blur and Fred Again plus many more.
The Award was presented by Ian W Brown, sales director from Robe UK. Although Matt could not be there in person to collect it, he instead thanked everyone in the room via video.
Other notable winners this year include Tess Falcone, who won Lighting Operator of the Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W4OX9AzgmQ and Jake Vernum, who won Stage Manager of the Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nZ_dyTR25k
Neg Earth won Favourite Lighting Rental Company of the Year – as they have several times previously … and the Outstanding Event Production of the Year went to Oasis Live 2025. Roger Barrett was honoured with the TPi Industry Recognition Award.
Photos @ Marko Polasek
