SGM SixPacks Score Maximum Points at Eurovision

	Photo credit: Jakob Boserup

When Austrian drag act Conchita Wurst was crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, it brought to the end a spectacular show, helped along by SGM's LED lighting.

The show's creative director, Per Zachariassen and lighting designer Kasper Lange (with whom he has worked for ten years) ensured that content throughout the 26 artists performing could be delivered to four different surfaces, allowing the stage to be transformed from act to act. This included the huge, classic SGM LED back wall--measuring 110m wide by 13m high--and it was here that over 350 SixPack blinders were utilized.

Once again, SGM had been appointed an official technical event supplier as the evergreen event arrived in the company's own back yard, taking place in the B&W Hallerne at Copenhagen's Refshaleøen--a former ship's wharf that has been transformed into a Eurovision Park.

Kasper Lange used most of a complete inventory of 362 SixPacks to form a pixel-mapped back wall matrix effect. Each fixture combines six outputs of powerful 40W color mixing with built-in electronics, and individual DMX control over each lamp, to boost the LD's creativity, the company says.

Given a free hand to design and specify the show, Lange was using the fixture for the first time. "I had a strong idea where I wanted to go with the design--and the SixPacks are a good, stable, and very powerful fixture which we used selectively, as special effects." A Hippotizer was used for the pixel mapping and the lighting was controlled from a series of grandMA desks.

SGM CEO Peter Johansen says, "I am proud of the design Kasper Lange made and delighted that he chose SGM fixtures as part of his incredible show....It's great to know that the coolest lights in the world are being developed and produced in Aarhus, which is fast becoming the lighting industry's answer to Silicon Valley. In fact Denmark supplied 25% of the lighting used at Eurovision."

The inventory of SixPacks was supplied by main contractor, LiteCom A/S, sub-contractor PRG, and SGM's rental partners from around the world. The purchase of the SixPacks represents a substantial investment for both vendors.

According to LiteCom account manager, Balder Thorrud, Litecom had joined forces with PRG in order to answer an EU tender issued by DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation). Having been respective leaders in their field for several years, the vendors had already set up a close working relationship with Kasper Lange. "And once again, it has proved a great collaboration," says Thorrud, adding that the back up from SGM had been extremely positive.

Although Lange is experienced at working high profile TV talent shows for DR, including X Factor, Denmark's Got Talent and Danish Eurovision, he says, "This was the largest project I have been involved in--by far."

To get an idea of scale, the production, in which 450 staff were engaged, attracted an expected television audience of more than 120 million fans. Figures released the following day showed Eurovision generated 5.4 million tweets on social media, with a peak Twitter activity of 47,136 tweets per minute when Wurst's victory was announced.