The star-studded event was televised live on Slovakia's main national channel, RTVS, and lit by the country's top TV lighting designer Martin Kubanka, who used Robe moving lights at the core of his rig. Lighting, sound and AV equipment was supplied by Slovakia’s number one rental house, Q-99.

Kubanka’s starting point for the lighting was the circus theme suggested by Daniel Sichman’s stage set, which featured an intimate performance area and was spherical shaped like a big top venue. The auditorium was also partially masked off and shaped in a semi-circular format to match.

In the roof, above the stage, a curved truss circled the main presentation space, and inside this were a series of straight trusses which gave rigging points for many of the lighting fixtures, along with the high and medium resolution LED surfaces which framed the stage. There was also a large LED floor supplied by Q-99, and they also provided and built the other LED areas of the stage set including the steps.

Over 50 Robe fixtures were used - a mix of 14 x ColorSpot 1200E ATs, 16 x ColorWash 1200E ATs and 16 x ColorMix 575 ATs. On the furthest downstage truss were 6 Robe REDBlinder 2●96 LTs, used for warming those audience members sitting in and around tables at the front of the stalls area.

The majority of units were positioned on the overhead rig, with 4 ColorMixes onstage flanking a giant rotating scenic replica of the golden OTO Awards trophy, and also providing nice effects for the wide camera shots. Six ColorSpot 1200E ATs were positioned to the left and right of the steps at the sides of the back stalls areas, and also used for the dramatic wide-angle camera shots.

In addition to lighting the 2 ½ hour show for a standard TV broadcast, performances by several guest artists required more theatrical lighting, so the design also had to be dynamic and flexible enough to cater for the different aesthetics.

Onstage, Kubanka kept the lighting very much focused on the circular marks around the set. With the whole of the back wall made up of LED, he needed powerful lightsources to cut through, so the ColorWash and ColorSpot 1200s were ideal. The ColorWashes used on this show were fitted with special PC lenses to make them softer and more diffused, which helped with general stage washing and coverage.

The ColorMixes were also used onstage for up-lighting the set, the scenic statues and the columns.

Kubanka has been using Robe moving lights right from the start. Q-99 has a large rental stock, all of which – even the fixtures purchased 6 or 8 years ago and used constantly – are still going strong, and without any technical issues. “The reliability of Robe is absolutely remarkable,” states Q-99’s Marek Adamik, “From a rental company perspective, this aspect has really helped contribute to our success.”

On a show like this, the palette of available colours is vitally important, and Robe gives him all the choice he needs, in addition to all the other effects like dimming and fast strobing. "Robe has so many features and I never tire of finding and trying new things,” he says, adding that, naturally, he also has a classic set of effects 'up his sleeve' which he knows work fabulously on TV.

He is very much looking forward to using the new Robe ROBIN series, particularly the MMX Spot which will be launched at Prolight+Sound 2011 and the amazing LEDWash 600, which is Robe’s fastest selling product in a decade!

Q-99 also supplied a host of generic lights, a full white light package, LED moving lights and high powered flower effects for the OTO Awards.

All lighting was controlled via a grandMA full size console operated by Michael Schmidt. Another grandma full size operated by Tomas Lecky was controlling all the ambient video playback material for the screens, floor and steps, along with VT play-ins for the screens, all of which was stored on an MA VPU Plus video processing unit.

Q-99's new L'Acoustics Kiva sound system was in action with HiQ monitors and Yamaha digital consoles - a PM5D for the FOH mix and an M7 for monitors.

The show was directed for RTVS by Katarina Durovicova. The DoP was Michal Skotnicky and the executive producer Radka Blizmakovova.