Production designer Manfred Nikitser lit a protected fortress ruin for the seventh edition of the folk culture show, working to a triangle of size, weight and output that the building allows no way around
A primetime show, a protected monument as a venue and 251 fixtures from German Light Products. For the seventh edition of Aufsteirern, the folk culture show, production designer Manfred Nikitser staged the casemates, historic vaulted defense structures, on the Schlossberg in Graz. The recording on 1 October 2026 was the first time he had worked with 24 GLP X5 Dot Wash and 36 GLP WildWash 12, alongside 50 GLP X-PAR 12Z, 49 GLP WildBar 16, 34 GLP impression FR1, 27 GLP JDC2 IP, 23 GLP impression X5 Compact and eight GLP impression X5. ORF 2 broadcast the programme on 24 October. Asked to name the quiet star of the production, Nikitser picks one of the newcomer fixtures.
“The X5 Dot Wash is my absolute favourite, and it convinced me completely,” says Manfred Nikitser, production designer. “I will be using it a great deal more on this show in future.”
Aufsteirern is a co-production between the Graz agency Ivents Kulturagentur, which commissions the show, and ORF’s Styrian regional studio. The format brings together artists from a range of musical genres with folk culture groups, most of whom do the performances live. In ORF 2’s primetime slot, it regularly reaches around half a million viewers and roughly 20 per cent market share.
Manfred Nikitser Design has handled set and lighting design for the third time. The underlying concept stays deliberately recognisable for the audience, and the changes happen in the details.
The design splits into two. A talk area sits on its own riser in the middle of the room, with the show stage at the far end behind it. While the presenter is talking to his guests, the next act is already being built on the show stage. Floor elements and fixtures sit on wheelboards, and a loading door lets the risers and backline of one band roll in as the previous band’s roll out.
“On the talk stage, the architecture shapes the picture to a very large extent,” says Nikitser. “The show stage with its LED wall is far more show-oriented by comparison.”
In the talk area, the presenter speaks into the cameras across a radius of around 180 degrees, so front light and backlight have to work from every direction at once. The lighting then must serve the architecture, conversation and music simultaneously, and it must do it on a tight weight budget.
The 24 X5 Dot Wash were new to the Aufsteirern rig. They picked out accents in the camera backgrounds and lit the new presenting positions, a job that had previously fallen mainly to the X-PAR 12Z.
“Until now, the 12Z was very clearly my preferred single-source fixture for television work, with a very nice large lens and an excellent zoom,” says Nikitser. Competition from a newcomer was not part of the plan. Olli Schwendke at GLP had recommended the X5 Dot Wash to him warmly. “Honestly, I did not want it at all, because I was so happy with the 12Z,” he admits. “Now, I think it is fantastic.”
The X5 Dot Wash belongs to GLP’s new Dot range, which also includes the Tunable White Dot Wash and the TW Dot Pinspot. These are ultra-compact static fixtures the size of an MR16 birdie, delivering X5-quality colour through RGBL mixing or tunable white. The wash models carry a manual zoom from 16 to 68 degrees and the TW Dot Pinspot a particularly narrow seven degree beam angle. All are IP65 rated, passively and therefore almost silently cooled, and run from an external 24 to 48 V power supply. The range was conceived primarily for scenic and accent lighting in high-quality colour, though as the Graz production shows, the X5 Dot Wash also stands as an alternative to a conventional single-source fixture.
“Because it is so small, the X5 Dot Wash fits between other fixtures without any trouble, and with its very wide zoom, it does an excellent job,” says Nikitser. Colour consistency did the rest, as the X5 Dot Wash matches the other fixtures in the X5 Series and drops into a rig alongside impression X5 and X5 Compact without adjustment. “The colours matched straight away. It looked great immediately.”
The casemates are what remains of the Schlossberg fortress, razed in 1809, and the site is a protected monument rather than anything resembling a standard arena.
“You cannot hang as much as you want everywhere. There are clear limits,” says Nikitser. Size, weight and output form what he calls the famous triangle, which has to stay in balance, and inside a budget that as a rule does not grow to match.
That is why the show stage moved this year to 36 WildWash 12, providing effect light and audience backlight.
“We wanted to save weight without giving up brightness,” says Nikitser. “The WildWash 12 let us do exactly that. Despite being IP65, it combines low weight with great output and very nice colours.”
Key light, front light and backlight on both stages come from the 23 impression X5 Compact, mounted on pipes that tuck discreetly into the historic fabric.
“The X5 Compact are so small and light weight-wise that you can smuggle them into the existing architecture without disturbing the picture,” says Nikitser. “The X5 does everything. Good output, a great zoom, fantastic colours, low weight and a high CRI.”
The architecture itself is brought into shot by 49 WildBar 16 and 34 impression FR1. The WildBar 16 light the columns and the ivy growing up them, and in single-pixel mode, they place accents along the front edge of the stage.
“Good zoom, good output, good colours, easy to install and within budget. The WildBar 16 wins on every line of our specification,” says Nikitser.
The FR1 are distributed across the whole room as moving single-source fixtures, turning to the talk stage, the show stage or the performance area opposite depending on the scene.
10 to 12 acts, some of them playing medleys, come to somewhere between 15 and 20 songs, each needing a look of its own. For that, Nikitser uses 27 JDC2 IP at stage floor level, driving them exclusively through the onboard DigiFX, including the new possibilities in the current firmware 2.0. DigiFX runs directly from the lighting console with no media server and no video input.
“The JDC2 is more than a strobe. Its graphic layers give you an interesting look in camera. It can sparkle, it can strobe, and it can be matched precisely to the music,” says Nikitser. “For shaping music in the camera image specifically, there is nothing comparable.”
He also singles out a piece of software rather than a fixture.
“It is also good that GLP has now brought out the JDC2 Simulator, which lets you see the DigiFX in advance, try them out directly alongside the console, and roughly pre-programme the position data for the fixtures,” says Nikitser. “Previously, that was only possible once the fixtures were physically rigged, and there is often very little time for that on site. I would say that anyone interested in the JDC2 should simply download the simulator and play with the DigiFX to form their own impression.”
Technical delivery of the production was handled by service provider NoiseGate under Daniel Haidinger, with Egon Waltl as production manager and Martin Rupprecht operating white light.
For Nikitser, the production doubled as a field test.
“This year’s Aufsteirern production gave me the chance to look at new GLP products in use and to say openly what I think. Working with GLP is always fantastic in that respect,” he concludes. “We and our client are very happy with the result and with the products we used.”
