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But they do enter the Eurovision song contest. Anyone remember Dana International?

Hey do you guys get to see the Eurovision Song Contest. A magnificent display of totally kitsch europop. I haven't missed one for years. Last year the show was run on 8 linked GrandMA boards.
And the year(s) before that they used 8? ETC Congos. I don't think it is broadcast in the US.
 
Is that number of consoles overkill? I hear these things from you guys, and I can't help but wonder if it was necessary, and was really all that helpful for the price-point, are people just doing these things because they have the resources?
"GOD ****IT THIS SHOW NEEDS 65 UNIVERSES! I DON'T CARE IF THE LIMIT is 64! LET'S JUST LINK TOGETHER EVERY GRANDMA ON THE EASTERN SEABOARD!"
(Yes I caught the "GRANDMA", I thought I'd leave it in for Derek to make fun of me... :()

That's actually a good question. I have the rig somewhere I haven't looked at it for a long while but they had something like 1200 movers plus video plus all sorts of things I don't even pretend to understand.
The funding is extraordinary for Eurovision and its probably something like:
"The budget for lighting is 20 million Euro's"
"Really, how the hell are we going to spend that?"
"No idea but if you don't we'll only get 10 million next year."
"Well OK where's that equipment list? How many Showguns are there in Finland anyway? That's not enough lets get another 500 from Germany."

And for the end result.

Someone from Serbia wins with a song that vanishes without trace even on the European market.

The previous year a fantastic heavy metal band from Finland won. I loved them they were great.
 
i think it was another event similar to that that had 24 of high end's video servers running on it.

oh and charc for the grand-ma desk joke you better be running for the hills.
 
Is that number of consoles overkill? I hear these things from you guys, and I can't help but wonder if it was necessary, and was really all that helpful for the price-point, are people just doing these things because they have the resources?
Yes and no. Take an event such as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2002 Sydney Olympics, in deference to our Austrian friends:). The programming process is well-documented via a daily journal in the appendix of Brad Schiller's Book, The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook. And I heard the stories first hand from one of the programmers. A WholeHogII, arguably the best available console at the time, could only do 4-7 universes. Due to the sheer numbers of lights, 8 consoles were needed just to get the proper amount of DMX channels/universes. Another 8 as backups. And one Strand 550i plus backup for the conventionals. The 550 opeerator had the hardest time of all.

Now today, while a grandMA and Virtuoso and others might be able to do 64 universes, with Media Servers often taking up just over half a universe, and the XspotXtreme needing 38 channels each, one could still run out of DMX channels.
But more importantly, to put the responsibility of programming that many devices on just one operator, under extreme time pressures, is just impossible/ludicrous. No one could push buttons fast enough. Thus, "distributed processing" or in this case, "distributed programming." One guy and one board just does all the Profile lights, another all the soft edge lights, another just the Showguns, the girl with the conventionals, etc. OR, One console for just the audience lights, one for the overhead lights, one for the floor lights, one for media servers, etc. In a way it harkens back to a Broadway show with 6 piano boards. And I can see where most people would think it's "over-kill." There's also manufacturers' bragging rights, but that's another topic, really.

To take a more recent example, Young Frankenstein on Broadway, which you may get to see if you behave and are willing to sell your first-born son, uses three lighting desks. Moving Lights on the EOS, Conventionals on the ObsessionII, and Projection on the grandMA. Yes, any of those boards might have been able to handle the entire show, but it's more efficient time-wise to pay three top programmers who are each in their own world.

A well-known magic duo show here in LV started with, I think eight "lighting" consoles, each from a different manufacturer and chosen as they were the best at the time for their dedicated task. I think over time they got it down to four or five. Eventually the scrollers were put on the conventional desk. Atmospherics and projection were combined, as they used the same brand of desk. Non-DMX devices, requiring proprietary controls, were upgraded, etc.

The last major TV award show I did had, I think four desks and four operators/programmers, representing three or four manufacturers.
 
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Derek, 2000, not 2002!

There is very little in an Olympic ceremony that does not have some form of redundant backup. Sound and lights I know, the rest I presume follow suit. It's not that they know of any problems, it's just cheap insurance - yes 100s of thousands in consoles IS cheap...

Take sound for instance in Athens. Mics that mattered were dual capsule, dual power supply models. Radio mics had dual receivers, one at FOH, one elsewhere. Consoles were duplicated. The outputs ran on optocore, in itself having redundancy galore, and analog copper backups were also run. So right up until the Lake processors was duplicated. The lakes were configured such that the moment they lost AES / EBU signal to revert to the copper. This changeover can also be manually triggered. The guys who do these gigs spend MONTHS asking "what if" and then building a way around virtually every possible contingency. Oh, did I mention that almost all the Olympic audio had dual power supplies. These were fed from different GRIDS.

These days, with the advent of Colour web and such things,a dozen universes in an LED curtain is quite normal, and in fact is looking a little to the small end. Ethernet is now everyone's friend.

And to use an example, the MTV awards last year in Sydney used 2 separate line array systems, one for the bands, the other just for the speeches. In corporate event land, dollars don't matter so much as getting the feel they want. If that takes 8 consoles, so be it...
 
To take a more recent example, Young Frankenstein on Broadway, which you may get to see if you behave and are willing to sell your first-born son, uses three lighting desks.

Young Frankenstein had it's pre-Broadway test run here in Seattle early last fall. It got rather poor reviews and tickets were readily available the entire time it was here. Word on the street was that Mel Brooks pushed his luck too far, he had lost his touch, and it was a very expensive disaster. Apparently, things have changed on the drive to New York.
 

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