Ola Melzig, production manager for Eurovision Song Contest 2019, shared these fun facts about this year's massive production, located at Expo Tel Aviv in Israel and featuring stage design by Florian Wieder and lighting design by Dakar Azulay and Ronen Najar. Get a behind the scenes look of the build with Melzig.
General
- 54 days from load in to load out.
- 21 days of build up.
- 96 hours for load out.
- 7,200 spectators in the audience.
- 3,000 shifts of stagehands.
- 225 people to operate a Eurovision broadcast.
- 250 trucks of gear.
- 37 forklifts, cherry pickers, and scissor lifts for the build up and load out.
- 200 kilometers of cable.
Lighting
- 2,100 lighting fixtures.
- 100,000€ saved in diesel by using LED powered lights.
- 11 lighting desks to run lighting.
- 120,000 control parameters.
- 250 active DMX universes.
- 24 remote controlled Followspots operated with the Litecom Spotdrive system.
- 527 Ayrton Magic Blades on the back wall.
- 24 days of pre-programming for the lighting designer and their four operators.
- 30 people to run lighting operations in show mode.
- 2,991 main power circuit breakers for lights.
- 80,024 meters of cable for lighting alone.
Stage
- 12 single screens create a 36 x12m high resolution LED wall for the background.
- 250 sq.m. diamond shaped stage floor, complete with high resolution LEDs, creates center stage.
- 2 x 25-meter-long runways frame center stage.
- 2 x 12m steel constructed bridges connect the runways.
- 4 conical legs extend from the ceiling and connect to stage and runways for a prism-shaped stage design.
- 130 LED triangles, made of 1.250 LED bars, create an extensive roof.
- 9 of the LED triangles move individually up and down and tilt back and forth.
- 16,998,976 pixels for the total resolution of all the LED in the stage...making it the highest resolution in a Eurovision stage ever.
- 650 sq.m. lounge area comprises the greenroom for the delegations.
- 26 delegations are hosted at the same time.
- 900 LED bars comprise an LED ceiling above the greenroom holding area.
- 30 crew plus stage management to do the change overs between songs.
Pyrotechnics
- 10 heavy fog machines.
- 48 flame units.
- 20 spark machines.
- 18 MagicFX Smoke Jets.
- 24 x 16 channel pyroracks on stage.
- 1 waterfall truss with 40 holders.
- 8 Magnum Confetti Cannons for the winning song.
- 2 Universal Effects Wind Machines.
- 8 MagicFX Stage Fans.
Sound
- 23 line arrays flown.
- 150 loudspeakers.
- 232 microphones.
- 14 sound desks.
- 250 IEM molds.
- 110 IEM Receivers.
- 24 IEM Transmitters.
- 33 crew to run the sound operations in show mode.
Rigging
- 185 tons of rigged equipment in the ceiling, which is 100% more than ever before.
- 1,050 rigging points.
- 650 hoists.
- 110 load cells.
- 6,500 meters of truss.
- 980 shifts of riggers to get everything in and out on time.
Broadcast
- 23 droadcast cameras, 17 of them as Show Broadcast cameras.
- 11 kilometers of broadcast cables.
- 85 people involved to handle broadcast.
- 2 Multicamera Directors.
- Cuepilot switcher programming helps all changes to the song directing to be made instantly and all cuts to be according to the general show time code.
- 2 remote controlled dollies, one with 2 cameras and one with one camera.
- 3 cranes, one 2D system, and 3 Steadicams.
Communication & Intercom
- 175 Intercom Panels.
- 265 Analogue Radios.
- 205 Tetra Radios.
- 20 kilometers of signal fiber cables.
- 1,150 rechargeable battery sets.
- 140 network switches.
- 260 WiFi Access points.
- 6,000 Mbit/s internet capacity.