MA、Claypaky and Ayrton Lighting the Eurovision

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Time of issue:2018-06-26 09:45
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2018 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC)
Hosted at Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal

Instead of using giant screens, this ESC returned to the most basic lighting design. Lighting Designer Appelt employed more than 2,000 lighting fixtures, including over 750 Claypakys，over 100 ADB LED - ADB Klemantis，and over 700 Ayrton lights. All lighting fixtures were supplied by Ampco Flashlight and Pixel Light.

This is the fourth time that Appelt has served as the Lighting Designer of ESC. He worked closely with the Set Designer Florian Wieder to deliver a stunning, multi-faceted stage canvas that beautifully echoed Portugal’s nautical heritage, while offering a remarkable level of visual versatility. In addition, the design directly addressed the comments from Salvador Sobral, the winner of 2017 ESC, who said, "Music is not fireworks, music is a feeling, so let’s try to change this and bring music back!"

Appelt has a deep understanding of Claypaky, ADB and Ayrton products, producing a range of stunning, sculptural lighting effects through shaping all levels and areas of the scenery. Performers had different styles in the whole Contest, Appelt needed versatile equipment to provide him varieties and choices to show everyone's style properly.

In previous three Eurovisions, Appelt chose to use entire Ayrton portfolios in his lighting design which can offer what he needed in this growing project: small size, lightweight, powerful lighting, high optical efficiency and absolutely reliable performance. "These are not only about my creative work, but also about production, load, static, power consumption, output, services and labor costs, which should not be forgotten even they are not on the stage. ”

Around the circular stage designed by Florian Wieder, the light effects depended on the three-dimensional interaction among the strong backlighting, a range of flowing wooden vertical ribs and the back walls with 351 Ayrton MagicPanel™FX luminaires installed on the custom-made aluminum walls.

MagicPanel-FX is a 5x5 LED Matrix Luminaire with Ayrton's proprietary optical zoom system with a wide range of 3.5°- 53° and continuous rotation on pan and tilt. Its square lens brings more possibilities to the design, creating unique 2D patterns and 3D stereoscopic effects through blending the beam shapes and colors.

In this contest, MagicPanel-FX was used to make a variety of effects, providing a customized appearance for each of the 43 participating countries. This includes using MagicPanel-FX to make starry-sky glittering effect and pixel mapping effect, to run video layers serving as low-resolution video walls, and to present dramatic beam effects.

Marc van der Wel, Ampco Flashlight’s co-head of production, said, "MagicPanel-FX was used brilliantly to amaze the audiences. Jerry used them in the most appropriate way to present utmost different effects for each performance.”

In addition, 64 Ayrton Mistral™-TC LEDs were embedded in MagicPanel-FX to create powerful lights emitting from the depths of the stage to the entire stage. "It is the most amazing and compelling fixture on the scene," Appelt remarked on Mistral™-TC, "I never expected such a relatively small LED luminaire had such a powerful output and versatility. The quality of lights is also second to none.”

96 MiniPanel™FX-MiniPanel-FX 2x2 version luminaires (Ayrton newly released) were embedded in two rows of tilted front panels facing the audience on the main stage. "MiniPanel-FX has right size and aesthetic effect." Van der Wel said.

112 Ayrton Ghibli were installed above the auditorium. Ghibli is Ayrton’s first LED Intelligent Profile Light with 7,500K color temperature, 23,000 lumen output, very high color rendering index, and 7°-56°optical zoom. "Like all Ayrton luminaires, Ghibli has great output, color temperature and color intensity. It is very impressive and being widely recognized." Van der Wel said. Rau agreed, "Ghibli is a great device. It works very well on site, very reliable. And it is proven the use efficiency of DMX mode is particularly high.”

30 Ayrton MagicDot™SX luminaires were used to outline the outer rim of the circular front porch, and to introduce additional dynamic effects in the air.

Another 60 Ayrton NANDOBEAM™S6 fixtures were divided to three rows for the backlights in auditorium. "With such high output power, these wall-mounted LED wash lights are ideal for higher truss decoration in that area," Rau said, "The wide optical zoom range means we can convert a beam effect to a good wash effect with the same luminaire.”

As the frequently used device in every Eurovision, Claypaky also offered diversity, space sense and dramatic effect for the Contest this year. Appelt selected versatile luminaires to provide as many options as possible. He said, "I want to make use of the lights position and their characteristics to create more possibilities. I also want to ensure the output and color consistency in every section. So I choose to use many Claypaky versatile devices: mainly are Claypaky Scenius Unico, new Claypaky Hepikos and Claypaky Mythos2.”

This year, Appelt used the Hepikos to produce dramatic light beams and stunning color effects, bringing more dramatic from different lens perspectives. Appelt stated, “The Hepikos is a super-bright beam-wash fixture that produces piercing, intense beams. It’s a versatile fixture which gives me equally effective ‘beam’ and ‘wash’ lights. Its primary use is to frame the huge curved trusses above the stage with aerial beams. In addition, I use the interchangeable rotating prism to break the light beam up into several dynamic projections, bringing further dimension to the overall picture.”

ESC head of production Ola Melzig added, “The Hepikos offers top-class performance and consistent color matching with the other products from the Claypaky range. Their relative compact size and low operating power consumption keeps costs down. This is critical to a show that needs run lighting for up to 18 hours a day, for over a month of rehearsals and broadcasts.”

Also debuting on ESC was the Claypaky Axcor 900 series LED fixtures. “I’m using these fixtures for the all-important performers’ key light and as a supplement to the follow spots,” Appelt continued, “The Axcor 900 is ideal as a key light, but it also serves as an additional tool in my creative arsenal as the ability to project and shape the beam means I can use the fixtures for other purposes as well.”

As ESC 2017 in Kyiv, Appelt’s main lighting fixture was the Claypaky Scenius Unico. “I look for lighting fixtures that can play the role of two or even three different functions, without compromising color, output, mechanical precision or effects," Appelt said. "Scenius Unico is one of my favorite solutions because of its high reliability and versatility; it can be a pattern, a wash or a beam light. It’s also of high output and relatively compact in size and weight which makes it ideal when we need to use so many fixtures.”

The powerful, flexible and stable MA lighting was employed for the production of this Eurovision again to provide the perfect network control solution. It was incredible that a total of 15 grandMA2 lighting consoles participated in the contest - including 13 grandMA2 full-size and 2 grandMA2 light, along with 6 grandMA2 fader wing, and 3 MA VPU plus and 39 MA NPU.

More than 12,000 people enjoyed three spectacular live broadcasts from Lisbon’s Altice Arena, while over 200 million viewers watched on television on thefinal night, and many more millions watched online. The final 26 acts put on a remarkable show for both the live audience and the cameras, but Netta Barzilai, the singer from Israel, won the final with her catchy pop anthem, Toy.

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Next: Retrospection of the Show | 2018 NAB Show Shanghai was Concluded Successfully