Robe lighting’s CEO, Josef Valchar presented demonstrations at a successful South African Robe Roadshow at the start of November 2018.
Organised by local distributor DWR and also attended by Robe’s sales director Harry von den Stemmen, the roadshow was an opportunity for the entertainment industry to experience first-hand the new T1 Profile, iParfect, RoboSpot and SuperSpikie products.
The team was very busy from 10am to 5pm each day and gave five to six demos at each venue. “The response was impressive! We had close to 50 people in Cape Town, 40 in Durban and over a hundred in Johannesburg!” commented Josef.
“It was great to hear all the feedback and see the reaction first-hand to the products. Obviously, the main attraction was RoboSpot and the T1, but people also liked the iParfect and everyone got to see SuperSpikie for the first time. It’s a Spikie on steroids – bigger, bolder, brighter! All in all, it was very good.”
From DWR’s perspective, it is rare to have the owner of a major manufacturer personally presenting a roadshow like this, and that was not missed by everyone in attendance. “I like it!” confirmed Josef. “I like to be in the frontline and be exposed to questions from people because I want to hear directly what they have to say rather than only relying on others telling me the responses they receive from customers. This first-hand information helps me make the right decisions. Obviously, I have to share my time between factory, family, travelling and roadshows, but I’ve been doing this from the beginning, and think that it’s the best approach for me.”
DWR’s Duncan Riley commented: “It was a successful roadshow and I think it’s wonderful that Robe still care about all their users and potential users in Africa – even if some of them are small businesses. That’s important and means a lot to us.
“That’s one of the differences with Robe. They actually care about the market no matter what the size is. We were pleased to get a good response both to the roadshow and to the products, from our clients. Everyone loved the T1 but they also liked the iParfect. It was all very positive.”
Harry von den Stemmen resonated: “It’s lovely to be back in South Africa, just wonderful. It puts me in the position to always reconnect with everybody I know, put faces behind the names if I’ve forgotten something, and to see everyone again. It gives that coherent, family feeling.”
Worldwide Robe’s new T1 Profile – theatre, tv and touring – has received a fantastic response after being launched a few weeks ago at the LDI expo in Las Vegas. There’s also been a good reaction to the SuperSpikie, obviously because it’s unusual as both a beam effect and wash fixture and “the RoboSpot system is absolutely rocking,” stated Valchar. “We have a couple of hundred systems on the market already, and this product – especially now with multi-device control – is becoming well established.”
