Lighting The Eurovision Song Contest: Part 1

Henk-Jan van Beek is the founder and chief lighting designer of Netherlands-based Light H-Art. Since 2006, the company has designed some of the country’s largest live-for-broadcast shows, including the Concert for Hope and The Voice of Holland, as well as sporting and fashion events and concerts. Van Beek talked to Live Design during rehearsals for the Eurovision Song Contest 2021.

Live Design: You’ve designed large-scale shows, including at the Ahoy Arena, but this is your first Eurovision as LD?

Hans-Jan van Beek: Yes, I was the consulting LD for the Dutch delegation at in Kiev, Ukraine in 2017, but this is my first Eurovision as lighting designer. The scale is huge, but it still feels very comfortable--like a familiar coat. All the companies are working perfectly together so it’s been a nice ride from the start.

LD: What was your first thought when you saw the stage deign?

HJVB: The lines were very strong in [Florian Wieder’s] design and immediately I thought I wanted to choose strong lines in the lighting design. I had some conversations and Florian to get an idea of how he wanted to handle the structural, architectural lines he had in mind. We were immediately on the same path.

LD: What adjustments have you made since last year when the show was canceled?

HJVB: The design did change a little bit from last year because we had to compress the set due to Covid. We had to make more space behind the set for all the foot traffic, so that people were not passing each other. The design became a little compromised, we lost three to six metres from last year’s set, and we had to start drawing again. But actually, after that adjustment it feels much better.

LD: You have nearly 2000 fixtures from technical supplier for lighting Ampco-Flashlight, can you talk about the choices behind them?

HJVB: The Ayrton Huracan is our workhorse here and it’s doing show lights, front lights, back lights—we have them all over our set. We have 40 on drop arms so we can adjust the set quickly. It gives a dynamic look, sometimes we have the huge videowall but others we need to bring everything down to a small area with just one singer and a few lights, and the drop arms help to create that intimate area.

We use Ayrton MiniPanels on the back of the two revolving doors [in the videowall]. On one side we have the video screen and on the other side we have 70 MiniPanels on each door. They work within our set so there is no cabling, it looks perfectly clean. We also made a special for them by putting a small mirror on the back of the so when they turn there is an extra effect as the mirror is hit by the lights. It works really well. We use it at the end of France’s song because it is a very small song [in terms of staging.]

We also use Astera X Bars in the set, we don’t have a huge amount but we use them for backlighting.

LD: You've got almost 500 Claypaky fixtures.

HJVB: Yes, we have Claypaky Xtylos, focused at the same distance all over the set, so we can create lines in several layers. We also have them in front of the big LED screen and a couple of other positions.

For Portugal [act] we have video hanging on the truss where we have Xtylos and they move with the LED behind them so it looks like they are in the set, it is a nice piece. We’re also using a lot of Robe fixtures on the Green Room and Robe Spiider and Beams on the stage

What I like to create with the Spiiders is a huge wash light, we put 11 fixtures in a pod and can create one big wash light that works perfectly all around and for audience lighting. With the combination of Xtylos, Huracans, and Spiider pods in motion we can create a very dynamic set. Not just rows of lights but also small, intimate settings.

The Follow-Me system we use for the back lights, follow spots and the Robe system for front lights.

LD: Did you choose the Follow-Me system to limit personnel front of house?

HJVB: Not really.  I like Follow-Me so we can be adaptable. We have one specific row of lights for the backlight but we can also adjust our Huracans on the drop arms to create a great backlight with 40 lights, they are a major step forward. For one of our interval acts, a dancer and a bicycle, we follow them with the Huracans and the Follow-Me system using PSN 3D positioning to keep the lights on the target.

LD: How many consoles?

HJVB: We have ten in action grandMA3s and some [for redundancy].

LD: Did you supply your own crew?

HJVB: We brought our own crew of very fine operators and we have been together now for 50 days and we still haven’t had any arguments! We have a lot of fun. In addition to a day crew there are two operators at night to [square away] notes from the delegates. Associate designer Martin Beekhuizen is our liaison getting all the notes from the delegations for us to realize. Most of delegations have their own lighting designer or have a  good setup already for us to incorporate and we sit down for discussions with all of them. We try to fulfil everything without forgetting our overall design--we try to mix it up so it works together. Fortunately we 40 very happy clients over here.

LD: How did you coordinate with the broadcast team?

HJVB: Previz was very helpful. Every department was able to integrate into CuePilot so that the multicamera director could see what we do with lighting and what video does with content, so he was very well prepared before he even got here to plan his shots.

In previz we found some angles with black holes, of course, even with so many fixtures, but it gave us the opportunity say to the director just change the shot a little bit and you have a nice backlight over there. It was eye opening for him, most of the time they have to imagine the shot but he could create a path for the crane or Speedcams and that gave him a step forward.

LD: The green room was significantly expanded, was that where any black holes were found?

HJVB: It’s on the stadium floor and it was stretched a lot, and but we had the opportunity to redraw our plans for that and add another angle so we have Robe BMFL washlights in the front and sidelights. Now we can have any camera shot without flares in the close ups.  

LD: What was a major challenge for you?

HJVB: The height of the set. We didn’t want to have the trusses and light fixtures in our camera shots, and we had to keep any motion above the set so it would not be hanging in front of the big LED screen. It was a great challenge to keep everything in our huge rig out of our sightlines.

LD: The videowall puts out a massive amount of light, did you find yourself fighting with the video?

HJVB: The biggest fight was to get the same white levels. Between white LED screens and white lights we are about 95% the same.  We were able to adjust the LED levels on the set to get the right color temperature in the floor and the walls.