Access All AreasCreative Technology was commissioned by Luke Mills and Gary Beestone of GBA on behalf of BBC Studios to provide a variety of LED solutions at Eurovision 2023.
Taking place at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena (cap. 11,000), the work brought together the stage design by Yellow Studios’ Julio Himede, alongside a technical team headed up by Matthias Kublik and lighting designer Tim Routledge.
Taking centre stage were seven ROE Black Quartz LED towers, two larger outer towers measuring 4×10 m and five slightly smaller inner towers measuring 3×10 m. The towers were attached to an automation system supplied by Belgium-based company WICREATIONS.
These allowed for upstage and downstage tracking of all seven towers and rotation of up to 720-degrees of the inner towers. The two curved LED side walls enveloped the stage with custom fabricated metalwork created by Stage One.
Working with sister company Faber, with assistance from project manager Steve Ackein, a two-part LED floor made up of over 700 panels of ROE Black Marble covered the large oval, catwalk, and upstage sections of the stage.
A ‘digital spike system’ was deployed to display plans for the show crew for prop positioning and LED extras. This spike system and all content playback was managed by Chris Saunders from Ogle Hog running on disguise servers. To bring everything together, 41 sqm of LED panels of ROE Vanish 8mm were supplied to create a ceiling with 6 flown elements – for the desired curved effect, facia masking was provided by Stage One.
On top of the static LED elements, Creative Technology also provided extras for many of the acts including UK’s Mae Muller, who began her performance upon an 8x2m LED riser on custom dollies.
For Sweden’s winning performance a 2.5×2.5m flown LED screen was built into a custom frame with automation by Unusual Rigging to create a moving ceiling. With another quick change over this was rolled onto stage and fully active within just 30 seconds!
Other additional LED elements for two interval acts included 5 custom LED risers of assorted sizes for the ‘Welcome to Our House’, performed by Ukrainian singer Alyosha – produced by Freckled Sky and 3 sections tracked LED for the ‘Be Who You Wanna Be’ performance.
Creative Technology UK project manager Arkadiusz Wegrzyn said, “The team onsite throughout the build, rehearsals, live shows, and de-rig have been incredible. The hard work and attention to detail from every single person has made this show a pleasure to project manage and I am so proud of what has been achieved.”