Eurovision Song Contest

Thursday, July 13, 2006 || MA Lighting

With more than 1000 persons concerned from 37 countries as well as 2000 reporting journalists the Eurovision Song Contest that took place from may 18th to may 20th 2006 was once more the biggest music event worldwide. It was held in the O.A.K.A. hall in Athens which was fully booked out with 14,000 spectators. Technically the Eurovision Song Contest was an outstanding event; the german company Procon was responsible for this part. Just for the lighting system they used about 500 moving lights as well as quite a few Barco video- and Schnickschnack LED systems. The video as well as the the LED systems were put in motorized movable stairs that had the shape of an amphitheatre. In total 44 DMX lines were used that were divided into 4 lighting worlds: moving lights, LED, white light and video/media server. The complete lighting control was done via MA Lightings grandMA system 4 grandMA full-size and 1 grandMA light including backup and 22 NSPs (network signal processors). Moreover an optic-fibre network with 4 HP switches was installed to guarantee the highest possible stability of the lighting control technology especially concerning network.

Such a complex installation of control and network could only be realized by a continuous, two-year-lasting cooperation between the mo Design GmbH the company of lighting designer Manfred Ollie Olma and MA Lighting. This started with the variety production Blue Balance in Oberhaussen, followed by the SAT1 TV-production Urmel aus dem Eis and the Stage Entertainment musical night Best of Musical. These shows illustrated the benefits of a real preprogramming studio to the team of designers. They were able to keep within the limited scope of time and budget and to use the short on-site time as efficiently as possible. In parallel for MA this event also meant important knowledge for the further development and functionality of their system components.

Six weeks before the show lighting designer Manfred Ollie Olma invited the whole team to the preprogramming in Cologne: Manuel da Costa (Moving Lights), Marcus Bossdorf (LEDs) and Philipp Herbst (Video). Marcus Krmer and Ren Berhorst (MA Lighting) supported them. For the preprogramming they used another 8 grandMA 3D systems for the real-time visualization in addition to the further consoles and NSPs.

The complete show was divided into four different sessions. For each session one grandMA full-size with backup was used. The Greenroom was controlled by a grandMA light with backup.

For the realisation of our job the MA system offered us possibilities that we loved, says Lighting Designer Manfred Ollie Olma. We really appreciated the close cooperation weve had with MA over the last 2 years. Since the beginning of the preprogramming in Cologne everything was to our full satisfaction. We had the chance to program and present in Real time. The preprogramming phase and the time in Athens was accompanied by a few bugfixes and requests that were - even in this critical phase - taken up and implemented immediately by MA Lighting. A bugfix that was found in the morning was already removed around midday and we could continue our work with the latest software.

On May 1st the whole team, materials and the mobile preprogramming studio moved to Athens. Here Oliver Heidingsfelder (programmer for the white light) and Pia Virolainen (lighting designer assistant) joined the team as well. On the evening of May 2nd the complete control network was re-built and ready to play so that they could start the adaptation right on-site. Due to the preprogramming in Cologne only the correction of single presets had to be made; this did not take much time at all. As the build up of the stage in the hall was considerably delayed the complete LED programmings had to be made via grandMA 3D. As gMA 3D is very close to reality and flexible, too, the production team was very impressed and full of praise for it. This was a very important benefit for big productions of this kind. The stability, flexibility and the direct access possibilities were important for the Eurovision Song Contest, as within shortest time lighting moods for 37 individual songs and artists had to be created. Furthermore they were broadcasted in two live-shows within Europe with an audience of over a million.