The 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was the first live event in the Netherlands that (with preventive testing) was allowed to welcome 3500 attendees per show after the lockdown. CrowdLED was asked to provide all the attendees with 28.000 remote controlled LED Wristbands to make them part of the show. A fantastic way of welcoming them back!
“We have a moment at the beginning of every show we call ‘the strike’. When the bracelets all turn on for the first time the audience will cheer as loud as thunder. And that’s a sound we have missed for 14 months!” says Paul Reuwer, Managing Director at CrowdLED, “we are so glad to be back!”.
The wristbands were used for the opening acts of the live shows and between the songs of the delegations to make the audience part of the show.
Radio Frequency
The wearables are controlled by Radio Frequency. It is CrowdLEDs own protocol developed in the Netherlands. All the bracelets have a built in one-way radio receiver. Only one Base Station in the Front of House is needed to control even the biggest Arena and setup takes only 5 minutes. They don’t have to set-up or rig any transmitters in the venue. The system is very reliable and robust
Of course, the radio frequencies at the Eurovision Song contest are strictly monitored. This was done by the Radiocommunications Agency of the Dutch Government. They were on site during the rehearsals and the live shows to make sure no un-approved transmitters were in the venue. Because of CrowdLEDs low output power, low Duty Cycle and the ISM frequency band there were no issues to be expected. The frequency is far away from wireless DMX, microphones, or cameras.
Fixtures
The LED bracelets are controllable per group as a 4 channel ‘RGB-Fx’ DMX fixture. They can make as many groups as needed. For this show they choose to use 10 randomly spread groups to create a random twinkle and light up the audience in the flag colors of the delegations. The lighting designers from Eurovision were able to easily add the programming of the bracelets into their timecoded show. Henk Jan van Beek’s team did a terrific job and it all came together perfectly!
Recycling: Douze Points!
All bracelets were handed out by CrowdLED’s own team wristbands at the entrance of all 6 shows. At the end of each show CrowdLED received almost 80% of the wristbands back at the exit. The wristbands are cleaned and refurbished by a local social working house, enabling people with disabilities to work. CrowdLEDs recycle scheme has re-used hundreds of thousands of wristbands over the years as part of their effort to keep their footprint as small as possible.
Technical Details:
- 28000 CrowdLED Wristbands
- 10 groups. Each controllable as a 4 channel RGB-FX fixture for colors and flashing modes.
- 1 Base Station at Front of House on 433.92Mhz
- 1 Backup Base Station with DMX feed from backup NPU.
- Battery time of 5 days
- Refresh rate of 35Hz (commands per second)
- Timecoded by lighting designers from Eurovision