MOSCOW — More than 2,000 square meters of LED video animated the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, the 54th staging of the finals. Procon Event Engineering of Hamburg supplied lighting, sound, video and rigging, rolling in 42 trucks serviced by a crew of 70 technicians. PRG and local contractors also played a role in equipping the set with more than 700 moving lights, 250 LED fixtures, 500 PAR lights, 100km of cable, 4,400 meters of truss and 520 chain hoists on 900 points with a total load of about 140 tons. John Casey was the set designer.
The lighting design was overseen by LD Al Gurdon, gaffer Rich Gorrod and more than a dozen others from Incandescent Design. Gear from Martin Professional played a key role, accounting for more than 1,100 square meters of the LED video (LC panels) and close to 500 MAC luminaires.
“The set was an environment that was almost entirely video and my job as lighting designer was to make the most of that, to work with it and integrate the lighting with it,” Gurdon said.
Six Pufferfish PufferSpheres driven by six Hippotizer HD media servers added to the visual smorgasbord, and Gurdon also used seven Solaris T-Lights and 112 Atomic 3000s for strobes and other effects. The Hippotizers were connected to the PufferSpheres via DVI matrix and controlled by a grandMA console operated by Timo Kauristo of Sweden.
The Martin LC wall served as a dynamic background. To ease set changes, it was made up of three overlapping sections, with each section about 35 meters long and 11 to 12 meters high.
“The LED panels had to be something relatively low res and low cost but still sufficient,” Gurdon said. “Weight was also a significant factor. There were weight issues in the arena and we couldn’t hang them, so they were supported by a large scaffold wall. Something higher res obviously would have been greater cost and heavier.”
The LC 2140 panels each weigh 19.4 kg, and the standard Prolyte CCS6 conical truss connectors also eased the staging challenge. The panels did not need external power supplies or drivers, either.
“Generally the LC wall worked very well as there was a sufficient distance from the camera and it worked in relation to the rest of the set,” Gurdon said. “We deliberately organized it so the high res LED was closer to the camera and the low res further away.”
A team of 10 programmers from Russia, who worked on the project for months, created most of the video content. The creative input came principally from Andrei Boltenko, who directed the show.
“I think they did a fantastic job,” Gurdon said. “My content creator/technicians were also making some supplementary content. We did three of the songs entirely, but the main job was to prepare the content we received for the screens configuration that we had, to time code it, and to modify it and re-render it where we felt that it needed it.
“I think that’s what made it very successful, rather than using video gobos or just graphics wallpaper,” Gurdon added. “It allowed us to give the set an architecture that had relevance to each song.”
Gurdon also made strategic use of the hundreds of moving lights and conventionals at his disposal.
“There are moments in the show when the lighting takes precedence and moments when the video takes precedence, although you can’t see them as separate elements. Sometimes we darkened the video content down in order to give more contrast to the people on stage, to give the lighting more prominence at certain points.”
After two semi-final shows, the final was held at Olimpiysky Arena in Moscow. Norway took top honors at this year’s competition. This year’s Eurovision was seen by an estimated television audience of 105 million from across Europe and beyond.
Eurovision 2009 Gear (from Martin):
400 x Martin MAC 2000 Wash™
96 x Martin MAC 600™
112 x Martin Atomic 3000 DMX™
560 x Martin LC Series™ (2140)
4 x Martin Maxedia PRO™
Crew (from Incandescent Design)
Lighting Designer: Al Gurdon
Lighting Programmers: Andrew Voller, Ben Cracknell
Catalyst Operator / Additional Content: Ian Reith
Catalyst Technician: Nev Bull
Catalyst Technicians / Additional Content: Lauren Cahill, Dave Newton
Lighting Gaffers: Rich Gorrod, Dave Hallett
Administrative Assistant: Kerrie-Ann Keogh
Green Room Lighting Board Operator: Dave Hallett
Spot Callers: Peter Canning, Olga Ostrovskaya
Crew (from Procon):
Production Manager: Ola Melzig
Assisting Production Manager: Tobias Åberg
Technical Production Manager: Matthias Rau
Crew Chief Lighting: Frank Karpinski
Crew Chief Video: Marco Scholwin, Hans Cromheecke
Lighting System Engineers: Dennis Drewen, Johannes Wahl
Media Server Managers: Jan Schröder, Mike Redmer
Production Management
M & M Production Management
Photos courtesy of M & M Production Management
For more information, please visit www.martin.com, www.procon.com , www.tmb.com/products/solaris , www.tmb.com/products/hippotizer and www.tmb.com.
