Eurovision spotlights

[nealsam]

Hello all,

I am currently watching Eurovision as I'm sure many of you out there are! One question I do have while I'm watching it is about the spotlights. Are they just intelligent lighting fixtures that have been preprogrammed, or are they actually manual spotlights. I'm wondering because I'm just thinking, where would you put a spotlight op in an arena like that?

It is rather sad that I'm thinking about this things while watching Eurovision... but let's be honest there isn't much else to think about it!

Cheers!

 

[derekleffew]

Lighting fixture list,
from May 11: Ich vergaß meine Kreditkarte an der Bar | Ola Melzig | The Eurovision Family of Events | Blog :

PRG BadBoy 122
Clay Paky AlphaWash 1500 64
Clay Paky Alphabeam 1500 84
Clay Paky AlphaSpot 1500 HPE 86
Clay Paky AlphaProfile 1500 40
Clay Paky Sharpy 24
Clay Paky Alphaspot 700 HPE 35
Martin MAC2000 Wash XB 174
Martin MAC2000 Wash XB, MicroFresnel 72
Martin MAC 101 112
Martin ATOMIC with Color changer 120
GLP Impression 90 164
GLP Impression XL 85
Expolite TourLED 296
Coemar LED PAR 39
Robe ColorWash 1200 50
A&O Falcon 7000 Flower 16
A&O Falcon 3000 Flower 24
Litecraft PowerBar 4 rgb+w 100
HungaroflashT-Light Pro 85000W 8
Showtec Active DMX MR16 Striplite 288
2kW fresnel 75
ETC - S4 10° - 750W 48

Although not on the list, I'm sure they also have manual followspot s (likely Robert Juliat s) probably both in house positions and as truss spot s.

 

[chausman]

Is your list saying there is 122 BadBoys? Or did I read that wrong.

Boy, those things are HUGE!!!

 

[MarshallPope]

That looks like it would be it. Remember, this is ESC. Things get pretty intense on the other side of the Atlantic for this show.

 

[chausman]

And, what is controlling all of this? A GrandMA?

 

[derekleffew]

From the same page cited above:

The show was pre programmed by Jerry Appelt and his team in a studio in Hamburg, using the Grand MA 3D.
It’s takes four operators to run the show, using 4 Grand MA 2 with full back up, so 8 desks in total. In addition, all content is operated off 16 Grand MA VPU( Video Processing Unit). And it’s all in one session in on the MA Network.

 

[shiben]

From the same page cited above:

I thought they were running 676s and hogs for the show... Might have been last years. I follow his daily blog every year, and its facinating. Quite an outstanding show. I want to work on it rather badly...

 

[LuxMax]

I thought they were running 676s and hogs for the show

Negative. All MA2 this year.

 

[shiben]

Negative. All MA2 this year.

Musta been last year's then.

 

[derekleffew]

I fully admit to not understanding anything about the Eurovision Song Contest, but it seems to me they go out of their way to use whatever is "new" and/or "trendy". In 2005 control was provided by five ETC Congo consoles: Singers Without Borders: Eurovision Song Contest . I think they may have used Compulite Vector consoles in past years as well.

 

[MarshallPope]

I think I actually preferred last year's Eurovision set to this year's. There seemed to be more depth to the upstage wall. IIRC, they had a lower resolution grid of Colorblocks interspersed with quite a few movers of some sort, and had layers of Jarags and soft goods. Also, I think the moire patterns formed by the video wall this year on screen was very distracting.

 

[shiben]

I think I actually preferred last year's Eurovision set to this year's. There seemed to be more depth to the upstage wall. IIRC, they had a lower resolution grid of Colorblocks interspersed with quite a few movers of some sort, and had layers of Jarags and soft goods. Also, I think the moire patterns formed by the video wall this year on screen was very distracting.

It was. I was watching the Irish group on youtube and you could barely see them from the distraction of the video.

Also, after checking, it was last years that they used PRG consoles and hogs, and they had intentionally tried to make the different looks less based on crazy video stuff and more about physical changes. IIRC they used a lot of Alpha Spots, a bunch of bad boys on the floor, and a bunch of MAC2000s over the stage. Color blocks behind. It does always make me jelous though when the green room has more moving lights than my theatre does conventionals (more conventionals too for that matter).

derekleffew, as best I can tell the contest is basically a inter-european grudge match of pop music that is televised and has a gigantic budget. Also, the LD apparently detests pink, which I think is counter intuative with pop music, but go figure. Its always cool to see what they do, as their budget allows them to make all kinds of really cool things, and use all the latest gear. My guess is they dont choose to go "trendy", but just choose whatever the "best" at the time is, the first year the bad boy came out ESC was using close to as many as U2, and at one point they were using something like 50% of the worlds Martin video pannles. Basically, they can afford the top top of the line everything, so they grab it.

 

[Ludwig]

Hello all,

I am currently watching Eurovision as I'm sure many of you out there are! One question I do have while I'm watching it is about the spotlights. Are they just intelligent lighting fixtures that have been preprogrammed, or are they actually manual spotlights. I'm wondering because I'm just thinking, where would you put a spotlight op in an arena like that?

It is rather sad that I'm thinking about this things while watching Eurovision... but let's be honest there isn't much else to think about it!

Cheers!

Hi,

Follow spots are Robert Juliat like every years:
4 Lancelot 4000W
6 Aramis 2500W
5 Victor 1800W

Lancelot and Aramis in FOH / Victor for backlighting on truss chairs

 

[MarshallPope]

For anyone who doesn't get PLSN, there was a pretty good write-up about Eurovision in the e-newsletter a day or two ago.

Eurovision Song Contest Rig Included 2,100 Moving Lights; More Than Five Miles of Truss

 

[emac]

I just watched the show, and I must say WOW!


The set up was absolutely ridiculous. The amount of movers they had......

I personally think that they did a very good job with the video screen, yes it was a lot at some points, but at least in the televised portion it looked good, and the arena show must have been incredible.

Also the green rooms were pretty cool.


One question I had was: How did they split the screen to show the "green room"?

Did they just move the center portions of the screen in front of the side sections? and if so what type of track did they use?

For anyone who doesn't get PLSN, there was a pretty good write-up about Eurovision in the e-newsletter a day or two ago.

Eurovision Song Contest Rig Included 2,100 Moving Lights; More Than Five Miles of Truss

In the PLSN article they did not mention any of the Macs or the BadBoys. Any reason for that?