The overpowering sense of weltschmerz generated by Bedrich Smetana's dolorous Moldau, leaks lke a nerve gas through the PA the second the CSA 737 thuds onto the blacktop at Prague Airport. The classical piece could scarcely be less appropriate to the Czech Republic's new dynamic - a dynamic symbolised by this month's overwhelming vote to become part of the EU.
In 14 years since the country's Velvet Revolution (which sounded the overthrow of Communism) no-one has embodied the spirit of free enterprise better than Robe Show Lighting. Situated in the north east of the country - far from the Bohemian breweries for which the country is famed, and close to the Slovakian Republic - 50/50 partners Ladislav Petrek and Josef Valchar have forged a thriving brand out of a bedrock of OEM business for leading manufacturers, and they are on a roll. You won't find Smetana playing in their factory.
In just 15 months since taking their own leap of faith - becoming visible for the first time with their own brand at the 2002 SIB expo in Rimini - Robe have blazed a trail around the world, setting up distributorships in 60 countries, and significantly piloting three direct sales operations... in the United States, the UK and Italy.
It has been a huge task, in particular, for the indefatigable Josef Valchar. But on the day mondodr arrived help at last seemed at hand, as throughout the day he engaged in a running game of telephone tag with the highly-experienced lighting professional, Harry von den Stemmen, before announcing at 7pm that Robe had snared their new International Sales Manager.
After several years walking the aisles of every major lighting fair Josef can now devote more time to the area for which he is qualified, product development and strategic planning.
The trade show which had provided his own Road to Damascus experience had been a much earlier SIB - in 1993 - where among a sea of Italian lightshows he witnessed Coemar's now legendary 'can can' display (which provided a new, visual language to the Offenbach masterpiece). Indeed, it could have inspired Robe's current day slogan - 'Think in Colours' - but more of that later.
Josef Valchar had graduated the previous year in Electrotechnic (lighting) at the University of Ostrava, and seemed set for a career in general commercial and display lighting. Instead he became sales manager of effects lighting company ProLux in 1992, where one of the partners was Ladislav Petrek.
Under the Communist regime, Petrek had worked as an electrician and also a DJ in the Walchia area. He and his business partner started importing PAR cans, mirror balls and other lighting equipment from Germany, while designing simple sound activated lighting effects which were sold exclusively to the domestic market.
When Ladislav's partner decided to leave the company, he and his new sales manager discussed the possibilities of forming their own company - and the simmering love affair with kinetic lighting was properly consummated.
ROBE SHOW LIGHTING was born in 1994. The name is a convolution of the first two letters of Roznov - Robe's base camp in the Moravian woods, known for its semiconductor technology - and Becva, the river that runs through it.
If the previous year's SIB had left Josef's head spinning as furiously as the mirror-scattered beams, it at least allowed him to return with a fund of ideas for scanner and centrepiece development.
He told mondodr that the memory will live with him forever. "It was my first visit and it really opened my eyes seeing Coemar, and also Clay Paky launching their Golden Scan 3." When he looked at all the sound activated effects on show he knew he was seeing into the future.
"At the time we were selling only to the domestic market. SIB gave me positive ideas about intelligent effects and scanners and centrepieces, and the direction we could go in."
One of the companies who had been supplying the Czechs' par cans was Steinigke, who at the time were distributing products by NJD and JB-lighting. As Robe started to produce some typical 'Galaxy'-style sound-activated centrepieces, popularised by companies such as Novalight and TAS (with their Synchro), Steinigke provided them with their first OEM contract.
By the following spring's Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Robe had built and floated the whole Futurelight range for Steinigke. Producing exclusively for the German company, their first scanner range comprised the D-200 (discharge) and H-250 (halogen) - as well as centrepieces.
Robe rationalised that despite the plethora of manufacturers in the marketplace, the Czech Republic could offer a lower cost base - although not as low as it had been prior to 1989.
Prices changed a lot after communism, confers Josef, and thanks to acts passed by Vaclav Havel's new parliament (eg. restitution of land snatched by the Communists to their rightful owners) a whiff of wealth and affluence was soon permeating the air.
Today salaries are four-to-five times higher than they were pre-89, though engagingly, Robe's workers still prefer to adhere to the Communistic working day, commencing at 6am.
Despite this, labour rates remain substantially lower than in Germany, and thus Steinigke, who had previously been buying from Italy and Taiwan, exercised their option to buy from a single manufacturer.
Starting with a simple colour, gobo, pan and tilt combination, Robe continued to supply Steinigke exclusively from 1994 to 1999 - a landmark year for the company since they were now developing their first spot and wash moving heads (the MH640 and MH660). "It was a real breakthrough because we introduced this at exactly the same time as Martin Professional brought out the MAC 250 and MAC 300," says Josef, "and so there was no question of one company copying the other. The first moving heads took us one year to develop. We had to invest in CAD software - it's all fully computer designed in 3D programmes. Before that, we had been using 2D so we had to invest in software and absorb the educational, tooling and development costs."
Robe had been running a workforce of around 70-80 people - but suddenly more companies started calling them up for OEM supply. Concerned that all their eggs were in the Steinigke basket, they were soon to take on contracts with Movietec, Starway, Sagitter, GLP, Caspar Haerle's Ultralite... and they also produced the Millennium range for TAS.
By the year 2000 production was running at full tilt. It proved to be an incredible year for Robe, tripling their turnover of the previous year to Dm20 million, which doubled again to DM40m in 2002.
The company were now employing 250 staff, and so two years ago they decided to purchase a 7,000 sq metre production facility from a former hosiery company. Although the building is a grey, pre-Communist utilitarian slab - in stark contrast to their stylish 1920's riverside office block in Roznor, just 15km away - the development scope offered huge potential. The following year they bought an additional part of the factory with another 4,000 sq metres where they have the metalwork shop and punching machines.
Today, all development is done in house as well as all mechanical, optical and software design. Robe use high-quality components, sourced from Italy and Germany, and the metal gobos are supplied by DHA.
So why had the company suddenly changed tack? The year 2001 started off promisingly enough. At the January NAMM show they reached an agreement to start manufacturing the Elation professional range for American DJ (by the end of 2002 the two parties had intensified their relationship to set up Robe America as a direct sales operation). However, by mid-year they faced an inevitable slowdown.
"A lot of the companies we were working with hit problems - we had to lay off 70 people and we realised we had to take destiny into our own hands and launch the Robe brand," explains Josef. "The decision to launch out on our own was a very difficult one - the most difficult we've ever had to make."
However, the minor fall was soon to become a major lift. Josef Valchar takes up the story.
Robe decided to wait for the Frankfurt Musikmesse in 2002 before announcing the first product range with their name on it. In the meantime they were changing their trading arrangements in Italy and extricating themselves from the relationship with Coemar.
"At the Frankfurt Show we held a lot of important meetings, assessed the situation with our remaining OEM partners, and realised that we needed to be in Rimini immediately after to launch our own brand and set up the distribution network," Josef recalls.
A few weeks later he was holding court at SIB on the Adriatic coast - but this time he had the new XT Series for company - and the interest was phenomenal. "I had meetings every five minutes - it was just unbelievable," he remembers. (One of those meetings was with Elation's Chuck Davis, who proposed that Robe set up their own company Stateside).
Life will now change again for Robe as the Czech Republic prepares to enter the EU.
Notwithstanding the underground economies of post-revolution Eastern Europe, Robe are facing up to the reality of taking an increasingly strengthening Euro around the world. The Czech Republic's membership of the European Union, however, will consolidate its business. With 99% of production going to export, delivery will be faster (presently, for example, they are unable to send trucks out on a Friday as they are not allowed to cross frontiers on the weekend).
One fear is that with labour rates soaring since democracy came to town, it could be that companies like Robe are looking anxiously in their rear view mirror at the tidal wave of scanners blowing in from the east faster than a SARS epidemic. However, in an increasingly price-driven market, Robe hope that their engineering superiority will win through.
Josef Valchar certainly remains insouciant. "Look at the car industry. Sooner or later the costs in China will be high and then production will have to move somewhere else. Right now there are four or five companies in China doing direct copies of our products - you can always find customers for those products but this is not our market..."
Right now Robe have a hustle on, and with the launch of the 1200 ColorSpot - the flagship of the AT (Advanced Technology) range - little will curb the momentum.
Designed as the ultimate creative tool for large theatres, TV installations and large scale installations, Josef and Ladislav preferred the Philips MSR-1200 short arc discharge lamp as being more stable.
"The ColorSpot has five patents which is the only way to protect our future," says Josef. "Some patents we are able to apply across many products for solutions but we have four patents exclusively for the ColorSpot 1200."
The fixture took 15 months and up to $250,000 to develop, and although up against Martin's MAC 2000, Josef acknowledges that it has additional features, and incorporates separate frost and more rotating gobos. It also incorporates the new Robe Navigator system for the address setting - with a large LED display showing the fixture status - and there is also ethernet connection provision.
Josef Valchar and Ladislav Petrek come across as a couple of sincere and accomplished professionals. Josef is thoroughly Westernised, talking in easily-comprehensible soundbites; the only language that confounds him is 'Estuary English' (as spoken in London and the Home Counties) but then that remains a mystery to us all.
"Over the next 12 months our priorities are to finish the setting up of our distribution network - that is the most important thing. You have to have product in stock when people want it, or they will go to your competitor."
Where other companies borrow from the bank, Robe's business is 100% under their control. "We aim to be around for the next 20 years - not to become megalomoniacs but to produce good products for a reasonable price and make reasonable profit. That's our philosophy.
"The new ColorSpot 1200 AT - and direct trading operations in the US, UK and Italy - will allow us to achieve greater market share as the business continues to grow organically."