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Eurovision’s 50th Anniversary Gala with Sound by Adamson
The Eurovision song competition celebrated its 50th Anniversary on 22nd October at the famous Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark. The live event - ‘Congratulations’ - was performed in front of a 5500 audience and televised in 31 countries worldwide with a viewer base of over 90 million.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided to take viewers down ‘memory lane’. The show presented Eurovision stars from the original show held in 1956 and artists of today including special guests Ronan Keating and Riverdance. The stage was an unusual shape but roughly 40m x 18 m, with three large screens dominating it. A curtain of approximately 700 square metres, consisting of 460 LCD elements, was used to create different lighting effects in addition to 250 moving and 500 stationary fixtures, as well as seven XML 25’s R18’s and R8’s. The technical crew for the event consisted of 150 people.
Sound Designer Jens Elsborg of Nordic Rentals, assisted by the Adamson Shooter software, calculated placement and coverage for the venue. The size of the venue was 75m deep, from the first row stage level seating to the back wall, and had a rise of 11m in the seating between 35-75m. The challenging task was to get even coverage in an area filled with massive LCD screens, cameras, and set pieces without getting reflection from them, or the back-wall.
For the main P.A. Elsborg chose to hang two Adamson rigs, left and right of stage, each consisting of eight Y18’s, with enough horizontal coverage to reach the sides and plenty of throw and power for the back row. The system had to be flown high to bypass some of the largest set pieces. To compensate for the height, Elsborg added six Adamson SpekTrix and two Adamson SpekTrix Waves to the bottom of each of the arrays. The SpekTrix Wave’s 15-degree horizontal cabinet made it easy to achieve extreme downward angles, attaining optimal coverage in the front rows.
“Three smaller delay arrays were added in the centre of the venue to correct trouble spots caused by the numerous lighting and set pieces that were obstructing the path of the main arrays,” commented Elsborg. All Adamson speakers were powered by Lab.gruppen amplifiers and processed by Lake Contours. Two Yamaha’s PM5D consoles were used with the main system.
‘Congratulations’ was one of few productions in Europe to use a completely digital sound system,” explained Elsborg. The sound in the broadcast was provided by DR, the host broadcaster. The mix down of two sound sets was done in a sound bus right outside the venue. “The Adamson sound system inside the venue was erected four days before the actual event, and optimised during two days of rehearsals before the day the show took place.” There was no room for mistakes for a show this calibre. “The Adamson P.A. has really good STI factor without all the hassle,” Elsborg added.
The show used 15 cameras, of which four were on cranes, two were steady cams, two were on a rail, and one was placed on the rig. With a mix of video footage of the original performances, live dancing and inventive medleys, the most memorable moments of the Eurovision Song Contest were brought back to life. A live 24 piece orchestra named provided backing to all the songs. Viewers from all over Europe chose ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’ as their all time favorite Eurovision song, originally the winner of the 1974 Eurovision contest held in Brighton in the UK.
In picture: the Adamason line array.
3rd November 2005
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