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ETC's Congo Rocks Eurovision
Who really stole the show at Eurovision 2005 in Ukraine? By many accounts, the lighting. Per Sundin's phenomenal designs, aided by a seemingly inexhaustible array of lighting effects, won plenty of praise. And behind the scenes, controlling all the lighting was a world-class programming team and a new world-class control system, Congo by ETC.
ETC's Congo lighting control console proved its mettle live in front of more than 250 million viewers at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest Kiev, running the largest rig of Catalyst Media Servers, LEDs, moving lights and conventional lights that one is likely to see for any staged event. Congo produced over 37 universes of EDMX to control spectacular sequences of lighting effects: pulsating projections of video fire, dynamic pillars and bands of colour, a phalanx of choreographed moving lights and rhythmic chases of LEDs dancing below an acrylic stage. Not bad for its final beta test.
The massive Eurovision system consisted of five Congo consoles each with fully redundant backup, three of them on the same network all handled through ETCNet2 nodes. The fourth Congo was operated on a different network to communicate with Catalyst media servers. The system controlled over 15,000 channels of effects and enlisted the expertise of five board operators - superstars in their own right - who each manned a Congo console and an intricate zone of effects devices.
On Congo 1, Sweden's Emma Landare mastered the main lights ("finger" trusses), including 162 moving lights and ten universes of EDMX. On Congo 2, Swede Danne Persson operated the effect lights (trees, floor lights and tubes) comprising 124 moving lights, 90 conventional lights and nine universes of EDMX. On Congo 3, Finland's Oskar Krogell took on the audience lights, covering 77 moving lights, 84 conventional lights and seven universes of EDMX. Eurovision assistant lighting designer Bullen Lagerbielke, also part of the Avab development team, drove Congo 4, handling 16 Catalyst video projectors (eight layers each), with 11 universes of EDMX, while Swedish countryman Ulf Sandström stood by at the spare Congo.
Sandstrom, also one of the console's original Avab design team, was thrilled at the performance: "It was an amazing maiden voyage for Congo - considering the multiple-operator setup and the complexity of the rig with hundreds of moving lights and Catalyst media servers. Standing by the main operators during the process, I was intrigued to see how differently they each approached the system and pleased at how well it responded."
For Avab software designer Anders Ekvall, Congo's Eurovision debut was a professional milestone: "This was the most amazing first show run on any of all the lighting consoles I have worked on since I began developing systems 23 years ago. What a debut for our new baby! I am really happy to see that Congo's graphical user interface worked so well under real working conditions and was so well received by the different operators."
Congo, which ETC will begin shipping worldwide in June, boasts a blockbuster lighting pedigree - the combined experience of ETC and Avab control design in a hybrid moving-light board with prodigious functionality and power.
31st May 2005
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