May 11: Ich vergaß meine Kreditkarte an der Bar

Ich vergaß meine Kreditkarte an der Bar

Time for dress rehearsals 1&2 for Semi Final 2. There are some last minute requests that we are trying to fix, mostly camera shots, but nothing big and no serious problems.

So, since there is little to report from that, and there has still not been a major breakthrough in the desperate chase of the true meaning of Schnabelkäse, I thought I should dig in a bit deeper in the technical set up we have here in Düsseldorf. So, if you are a true Eurovision fan, I guess you can stop reading now, but if you are a tech geek, this is all for you!

But before I do that, I just want to mention the OBVIOUS! WE KICKED GERMAN ASS IN ICE HOCKEY YESTERDAY!

I know I will regret mentioning that…………… But the world never remembers a coward…..


Lets start with what is filming it all! Needless to say, we record this in full HD with a 5:1 surround sound. We’re using Sony-Misher cameras, and it’s all recorded on a HD EVS server system. We have 25 cameras including a 2-D cam, a Spider cam, 2 x Steady cams, 2 x Camera rails with tower cams, a Super Techno 50, 2 x 14-meter Jibs and a 2-meter Jib.

Before the first rehearsal, the artists are doing a 40 minute in ear rehearsal in a studio downstairs. The settings are recorded on a memory card which is delivered to the Monitor guys inside the venue, well in advance to the first stage rehearsal. This was a system that was invented in Norway last year, and it worked extremely well and became a new standard. This way, once on stage, the artists can fully concentrate on their performances, and can use their 40 minutes on stage more effective.

After each rehearsal, the artist gets a 10 minute break, before they go to their 20 minute session in the viewing room. The viewing room is equipped with a 82” HD Plasma and a silly expensive 5:1 surround system. They get a HD Signal directly from the Hard drive server system in the OB-truck.



All lighting, rigging and crew is supplied by Cape Cross from Cologne, and it’s quite a handful of gear they brought here…….

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.




And here they are, the FOH team for Lighting and Video: From left to right:
Michael Giegerich,Sascha Matthes,Cäcilia Herr,Jerry Appelt,Olaf Pöttcher, Matthias Rau,Markus Ruhnke,Martin Rupprecht,Wolfgang Nöhrer,Matze Meyert and Matthias Hagel




Eq Count Lighting:

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

In addtion to that, we also have 8,5km of truss, 900 rigging points, and a total load of 280 tons.

Creative Technology are supplying all video and video crew for the show, and they got a handful too!


Eq count Video:
Barco Mistrip 1480mm 2100
Barco Mistrip 375mm 165
Barco Mitrix tiles 2480
Barco R20 Projectors 12
Spider F-30 LED 1080 sqm
Schnick Schnac LED 400 meters




I overheard two Norwegians were telling Swedish jokes. "Do you know how to save a Swede from drowning?" the one said. "No," his friend said after a little while. The first Norwegian grinned, "Oh, That`s good."

And you wonder why you didn’t get any votes from Sweden?

We'll do sound tomorrow!