The Eurovision Song Contest recently completed its 56th year, held at Düsseldorf Arena, marking the show’s first return to Germany since 1983. The production today is as well known for its technical achievements as for its lavish and sometimes unusual brand of musical performances. Nevertheless, Eurovision still intrigues audiences worldwide.
As well as the opportunity for each country to show off its musical prowess, the Eurovision Song Contest provides an excellent opportunity for the rental/staging community can do. Companies supplying the show included A&O, Barco, Cape Cross, Clay Paky, coolux, Creative Technology, d&b, MA Lighting, Riedel Communications, Robert Juliat, Stage Tec and Yamaha.
MA Lighting
German lighting designer Jerry Appelt, known for delivering big looks for music, television and everything in between specified a magnificent arsenal of lighting for the massive arena. More than 2,100 DMX controlled moving lights (5,638 fixtures total) with almost 42,000 parameters allowed 43 countries plus three interval acts and an over-the-top opening performance to have a completely unique look during the 3-hour broadcast.
100% control for all lighting and video came from
MA Lighting. Four grandMA2 full-size consoles, each with a full backup, as well as five grandMA2 faderwings ran all lighting and video, triggered via timecode. Eleven MA NPUs (Network Processing Units) devices handled all traffic in one session on the MA-Net2. “It’s not even practical to do a show like this without timecode and grandMA2 is the best,” said Appelt, “Absolutely every millisecond is cued and then rehearsed again and again and again. There is no room for an error in a show of this size. The MA system delivered a great result.”
Four operators ran the desks: one for video, one for effect light, one for white light, and one for audience and green room. In total there were 70 patched universes and 2,921 cues.
