Wednesday, June 1st, 2016

The technology behind the Eurovision Song Contest

Jonathan Blum

204 million viewers, participants from 42 different countries, 600 square meters of LED screens and lighting over a 250 m2 surface and 26 cameras gave rise to the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. This is, without doubt, the song contest with the greatest technology deployment in history.

However, what is the Eurovision Song Contest?

A song contest with history

The Eurovision Song Contest, also known as Eurovision, is the annual TV song contest held since 1956. Performers whose countries are members of the European Broadcasting Area participate in this contest. Staged for so many years, it was registered in the Guinness World Record as the Longest Running Annual TV Music Competition.

Ericsson Globen Arena, venue in 2016

The Ericsson Globen Arena, in Stockholm, Sweden, held the performance of the Grand Final of an over 60-year traditional song contest. A stage filled with optical illusions, lights and music, revealed a TV show with the greatest production cutting-edge technology.

The Ericsson Globen Arena is the world’s largest hemispherical building; it has a height of 85 meters and a seating capacity of 16,000 spectators. Because of its height, spidercams (cameras with free aerial movement) were used, which helped get multidimensional perspective images, as well as cablecams, steadies and robotic cameras.

Technology stage

A production team composed of over 200 experts worked since late 2015 on the Globen Arena stage to give life to the song contest. The designers’ mission was to create an innovative and tech stage. It had a LED light set, which created all kinds of optical illusions, visual and holographic effects. Light was the main component used to create depth, and to project images on the floor.

600 square meters of LED screens created impressive effects during performances. 1,500 lights were used for lighting and 74 fire canons for special effects, which created unprecedented visual effects. On the other hand, live guests had necklaces with a light that shone different colors, which matched the stage.

Viktor Brattström, the set designer, explained that “the design includes an innovative LED wall that allows performers to interact and go inside. Usually, a LED wall is just a screen over the stage back wall. We have gone further and we have broken such concept, and we want to make it possible have performers to go into the wall”.

Stage design video