The 56th Eurovision Song Contest included three live broadcasts – two semi-finals the finals – with a combined live audience of over 45,000 and an estimated 200 million TV and internet viewers. Broadcast by NRK from Telenor Arena in Oslo, Norway, there were singers from 39 countries and an equally-impressive assembly of crew and gear backstage. PRG, with support from Norwegian supplier, Frontlite, supplied all production equipment and crew for the show. In all, there were more than 100 crew members involved in the build-up process and more than 500 moving lights, 4,000 fixed light elements and 6,800 meters of truss.
Jon Ola Sand, executive producer, worked with Hasse Lindmo, TV producer. The production management design team included LD Al Gurdon and Ola Melzig, production manager of design.
Gurdon, who had also lit the 2009 event, sought a flexible system that would enable him to create a sufficient variety of visual moods and textures to underpin the tones of the musical performances.
The theme for the 2010 event was "Share the Moment," and a key consideration was being able to include the audience with whatever happened onstage.
To that end, Gurdon abandoned high-resolution video elements and instead created an immersive low-resolution lighting and video environment designed to be used in an architectural way, with less emphasis on literal imagery.
This three-dimensional approach to the visual design was intended to give the television directors a new opportunity to shoot the show from virtually any angle, and to give the audiences an almost visceral sensation of participation with the visual landscape.
Gurdon's lighting design featured a series of layers across a 130-meter-wide back wall that ran the width of the arena and wrapped around the sides of the stage. It moved up and down via a motion control system that included 80 Kinesys motors to create different looks.
There were 12 scenic elements that also moved – a combination of gauzes, cloths and pearl shaped plastic balls suspended on steel wire ropes, all part of the set designed by Kirsten Weltzin, Bonsak Schieldrop, Trond Olav Erga and Audun Stjern.
Many of these elements were in motion throughout the performances. The largest move had 76 Kinesys hoists running simultaneously.
The Kinesys setup included a mix of 1 tonne and half tonne motors and a K2 control system specified by lighting crew chief Richard Gorrod and operated by Ian Macdonald. Macdonald, who credited the Kinesys system for its multiple axes of movement, developed more than 300 cues for the shows.
The centerpiece of the visual design was an array of nearly 1,900 Chroma-Q LED fixtures. Other layers included Jarags, moving lights and Starcloth curtains, plus a 3D curtain of 2000 X-Balls in the center and other textural elements.
The visual elements were mounted on a moving truss system featuring circles over the stage and "spines" spreading from the centre over the entire ceiling of the arena. Created for the event by PRG, the 6.8km structure is the largest truss system ever used for the contest.
The largest scenic piece, just in front of the ColorBlock wall, was an 80-meter-wide drop of choucroute, a distressed transparent fabric that picks up light effectively. This was also flown on six angled trusses and 18 half tonne high speed JJ hoists.
The Chroma-Q LED fixtures were controlled via DMX from a Virtuoso VX show lighting console and fed video content pixel mapped from a Catalyst V4 media server through ArtNet and DMX merge software using the PRG S400+ node system.
All content was specially created for the event and triggered from timecode for every song from either the Catalyst or the Virtuoso, and sometimes both.
The Chroma-Q LED fixtures were used to provide a blend of video effects and lighting, sometimes with one element coming to the fore during certain songs.
Some performances featured abstract images such as waves or ripples, mimicking the amplitude of the music. By contrast, other songs featured low resolution moving video, such as an image of five stick figures simultaneously mimicking the same simple dance moves as the live performers onstage during the Lithuania performance.
"I had used 200 Chroma-Q Color Block LEDs on the 2010 Super Bowl Halftime Show in Miami, featuring "The Who," and was impressed by the results," Gurdon said.
"On the Eurovision show, we had nearly 10 times that number of units, so I had no doubt that we would be able to create looks as big as they come, yet we would also be able to use them with great subtlety for the slower numbers," Gurdon added.
Additional lighting and video equipment used in the show's production included Vari*Lite, GLP and Martin moving heads, Barco screens and various strobes, long throw followspots, Fresnels and floodlights.
Gurdon also used W-DMX for a special keylight ring built into the Technocrane and cameras in the green room. The Technocrane ring light was operated by Gurdon, and Sveinung Solbrekke, LD for the green room, operated the camera ring lights there.
The production crew also made use of LSC's TDS 48-channel touring dimmers, e24 dimming systems and DMX distribution, and an LSC maXim M (supplied by Multitechnic in Oslo) for stage motion control, drapery, silks and drop downs.
Additional production personnel included best boy Aidan McCabe, lighting programmers Andrew Voller and Theo Cox, Vision controller Luke Chantrell, LED programmer Michael "Oz" Owen, Catalyst operator Ian Reith, Catalyst technician Nev Bull and video content by Lauren Cahill, Rachel Sullivan and Dave Newton.
Lena Meyer-Landrut won the contest with her song, "Satellite." Following the competition's tradition, that meant the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest will be staged in her home country, Germany.
