May 14
First broadcast day is here! Today is finally time to show the world what we’ve been cooking for 10 months! I’m sure you’ll love it! So, since all pressure is on, it would be stupid of me to do anything but a very short update today. So, having that said, lets go into detail about what are noise boys are up to. After all, it is a song contest, so good sound is pretty important! I sent out Volker Schmitt whom is Global Director Customer Development and Application Engineering from our dear Official Technical Partner Sennheiser to do a report! Take it away Volker!
After the delegation is arriving at the EXPO, they will follow a certain route. Their are different routes for commentators, staff, journalists, fans and audience. Planning the flow of a Eurovision production is always one of our biggest head aches since we have over 2 000 people in our backstage.
A: Entrance
B: Delegation bubble
C: Hair/ make up
D: Sound Check and Bodypack dressing
E: Handheld Microphone hand out/ final check
F: Entrance via stage right
G: Bodypack undressing
H: Greenroom
Our trip starts between the Delegation Bubble and Main Stage at position “D Sound Check and Bodypack Dressing”.
Between the Delegation Bubble and the Green Room you will find the “Tunnel” to the Main Stage. The first thing you’ll find here is the IEM soundcheck room.
Before the artist is entering for the first time the stage, there will be an In Ear Monitoring Sound Check. This setting is copied to the other monitor mixing desks in the venue. We are using DigiCo SD5 and SD7 desks. 14 of them, to be precise!
Directly behind the Sound Check Room is the location for Bodypack Dressing. In Ear Monitor receivers and Bodypack Transmitters will be attached to the artist at this location
Here is the preperation desk of bodypack dressing. We are using Sennheiser EK 2000 Recievers. 110 of them actually. Together with 250 IEM molds.
A few steps further down the tunnel the delegation will enter the main venue with the stage.
Next step is to hand out the wireless handheld microphones and the final check. Our main mic is Sennheiser SKM 6000, but we also offer Sennheiser Custom Cardioid Headset if you prefer to wave your hands while singing! We use a total of a whopping 232 microphones in this show.
From final check there are only a few steps to the parking space before our contestants are going on stage.
And here it is, the waiting area for the artists, before they are going on stage. As I’m sure you can imagine, the adrenaline is quite high when they come to this point, so it’s utterly important that they are handled by a calm and proffessional sound crew, like the one we have here!
Here is the ramp that leads up on stage. We have left hand traffic on the ramp, just to honor UK and Australia!
After the performance, the contestants will leave the stage and go to bodypack undressing are before they are going to the Green Room, which is opposite site of the bodypack dressing area.
While all the sining and dancing is going on all over the place, the Sennheiser team in the RF world observing the wireless mic and In Ear Monitor system for Stage, Green Room and Press Conference. If you show up in our world with a wireless microphone, we’ll strip you or your badge and kick your sorry ass out of here. All frequences are full!
In addition to the magical world of microphones, we also using this:
Main PA: L-Acoustics K2
Subs: L-Acoustics KS28
Greenroom: L-Acoustics KARA
Press Center:L-Acoustics KARA
Monitor Side fills: L-Acoustics Kara
Network: Dante & Lake Control
Music Playback: Cue Lab
There is a total of 150 speakers in the main venue. We use 24 IEM transmitter systems and it requries 33 crew just to run the sound department in show mode!
All these fun toys are delivered by our Official Technical Partner AgorA from Italy! They are not only good at making salami!
Mind you, Broadcast sound is not covered here. We’ll try to tell you a story about that when we visit the most expensive camping truck in the world tomorrow!
Don’t forget to watch us tonight!
Here is the link:
