APRIL 7
WELCOME TO THE 10TH EDITION OF THE EUROVISION DIARY!
Happy hellos from Moscow!
Another day, another Rubel……….. The sun has found its way to the city, but it’s still really cold.
Today had some really good news, and some really bad news. That is the way it goes in the wonderful world of Eurovision……….
Good news first! A lot of equipment that was still not decided was confirmed today. Also, all the openings and intervals are starting to make sense, and we’re getting close to the final version.
Bad news has a special chapter half way down the page………
Here we are! Well, 70% of us at least,that are representing Procon on site in Moscow at the moment.
Billiga Bosses Bussar!
I guess you’re toasted if you don’t know Swedish…….. SO, we start from the top.
Bo Wahlberg, technical manager from EBU is in town! Bo goes back and forward, making sure that all the issues connected to the television part of this event are on track, and done according to the guidelines from EBU.
Svante Svantesson! Öhhhh, I’m sorry, I mean Mr. Stockselius!
Executive über kahuna of the Eurovision Song Contest, and a VERY good friend of mine.
Did y’all know that Svante was the executive producer for my very first Eurovision Song Contest back in 2000. I would like to point out that this was TWO years before Tarmo Krimm got involved………..
So we changed lighting designer, and it’s now Al Cooper doing the show.
So………………. we are rigging lights, video, stage, scaff, unloading trucks and trying to figure out what sound technicians REALLY do, so it is FULL ON in every inch of this giant building. Except for one place…………….
Amazing that someone actually manages to fall asleep in this madhouse……..
So……… we got an additional coffee machine in our office, to prevent this from happening in the future…..
More lights, more truss, more more more………..
So…. remember about the bad news I was telling you about in the header for today?
Well well well, it turns out that we got the wrong information from the engineers of the building, and now they’ve done a 180° change of opinion. The venue doesn’t respond to the loads the way they expected, so we had to lower and land all the trusses, to lower the load, and now we need to move 48 of the points supporting the mothergrid from the house grid to the roof beams five meters above it.
This will generate a lot of extra gear, a lot of extra work, and a lot of time, and was NOT something that we needed!
So……. how many Source 4’s can you fit in a square meter………….
Al Cooper follows the path that Al Gurdon laid out!
Kai Gerhardt and Veith Schlopschnat are happy together………… And after printing that, the mob of sound technicians chasing me
are now strengthened with some riggers……..
Our OSM (on site manager) Matthias Rau in front of his kingdom!
It’s REALLY great working together with you buddy! You ARE a ROCK STAR!
I have to get credit to Timo Kauristo, our Pufferfish Operator, for this sign. He invented this one last September, when we were in Istanbul doing a big show for Turkish Telecom. I’ve been trying to understand what this sign means ever since……………………
So, summing up, I’m better than Tarmo Krimm, an Al is an Al, and Björn is still hiding from the staff at Holiday Inn!
Ya Yaichnica! I think that means ¨I’m a scrambled egg¨
But I could, of course, be TOTALLY wrong and right now insulting the entire Russian Federation.
If that is the case, I better get something faster than my kick bike!