Here’s the audience last night during semi-finals.

So, we all know this is a European competition, right (that’s aside from some Eurasian countries represented, of course)? No North Americans in the contest here, but that didn’t stop the two resident Americans (production assistant Joan Lyman and yours truly) from acquiring an American flag and waving it proudly during the semi-finals last night. Everyone has a flag here, so we thought we should represent, yo. It’s been reported for over a year that our own “USandA” will be taking up this breed of competition at home, but final plans have yet to be announced.

Here’s production assistant Joan Lyman (aka, “The Other American”) representing the home land.

Of course, our display of the stars and stripes did prompt a member of security to ask, “You know this is EUROvision, right?” Off to do some more international diplomacy…

Stepping back a few paces…Have I mentioned that Live Design is the official US publication of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, so we’ll have exclusive coverage in our July issue? I found out last night that we’ll be named in the show credits, broadcast live to 42 countries, with in excess of 200 million viewers and many others across the globe receiving a delayed broadcast. Now, that’s not something we get to experience every day, so we’re really proud of that.

The video crew is presently tweaking some malfunctions as we speak, but there doesn’t appear to be too much chaos (yet)…of course, dinner break may be falling by the wayside at this point. Some video was lost during first dress this afternoon, but I’m sure they’ll get everything online in time for second dress tonight. It’s amazing how, when things go wrong, the audience doesn’t really have a clue. Rehearsal looked great anyway.

Semi-finals last night at Eurovision Song Contest put ten bands through to the finals (Belarus, Macedonia, Slovenia, Hungary, Georgia, Latvia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Moldava). It’s quite an interesting process. Unlike the hours of voting that goes on a la American Idol, the participating countries have 15 minutes to vote via phone or SMS, so the audience stays in the arena, and the finalists are announced on site. The ten finalists from last night join 14 pre-qualified finalists that automatically get to the finals…so another 24 acts play tomorrow night.

Just a few road cases in storage at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki for Eurovision Song Contest 2007. Sort of reminds me of the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The after party last night was a fun scene. All of the winners and many of the production staff headed over the EuroClub around 1:30am…late to be sure, but that’s what happens when the production wraps at 12:30, and everyone needs to blow off a little post-show steam. And anyway, they had food!

Here’s a shot of the set from last night. (Copyright: Alain Douit, Eurovision.tv)

Now just sitting through dress rehearsals for the finals. Second dress rehearsal is tonight. Thankfully, everything is running smoothly. Nothing has crashed, and the crew seems pretty relaxed. Interestingly, they sell tickets to the dress rehearsals, so the arena is packed for each rehearsal. There’s a great interval act at the break, but it’s a big secret, so I can’t give that away, or they’ll put me on the next flight back to New York. Check out the finals tomorrow afternoon, streaming live at eurovision.tv. More later…

After a long night, we’re back in the arena for tonight’s semi-finals. Last night, dress rehearsals ended around 11pm, and some of the lighting, rigging, and video crew (and at least one editor) trekked out to see the Eurovision finalists from Sweden, The Arc, perform at a local club in town. There was dancing and general merriment, and everyone seemed to get home unscathed. Thankfully, there are no photos to share of the evening’s festivities. I have yet to make it to Euroclub, the official hot spot for parties for the crew and talent, but I understand that’s the place to be, and we’ll probably get to the after party there this evening.

This afternoon, production manager Ola Melzig shared with me some interesting facts about this year’s Eurovision Song Contest at Helsinki’s Harwall Arena. Over 1,600 people are working on this production. The generators for the show generate a total of five megawatts of power. Lighting and video consume 1, 537,350W. It takes crew of 30 people just to run lighting and video, using 22,016 control channels on ten grandMAs and two grandMA Light consoles.

There are 400 moving lights and 620 conventionals, and 38 of the 281 rigging points are Cyberhoists for moving trusses. Fourteen Hipporizer media servers, 200 square meters of Barco MiTrix for a video backdrop and 125 square meters of Barco OLite 510 in the stage floor. Check out the full equipment list here.

Here you can see the Barco OLite in the stage floor.

Once the final show is broadcast, the crew will have spent 3,780 hours of programming lighting and video.

It takes 85,858 meters of cabling to feed it all. The outside HD broadcast truck cost about 10 million Euros, and it can operate up to 28 cameras. The production is using 21, with three in press center.

Semi-finals are tonight, and we’re starting the countdown. More to come, so check in regularly to see what’s happening.

I arrived today in Helsinki for the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s a spectacle of a production, to be sure. The sheer scope of the thing is astounding. I arrived at the arena and was treated to a tour by Spectra’s production manager Ola Melzig and production assistant Joan Lyman and ran into PR maven from the UK, Louise Stickland, who is also covering the production for several of her clients who have gear on the show.

The rig is absolutely massive, with 281 rigging points holding 98 tons of gear and covering most of the roof of Helsinki’s Hartwall Arena. The FOH area alone looks like a technological war room, with a slew of MA Lighting grandMAs controlling various aspects of the visual production. More to come on that in my full feature in the July issue.

The view from just behind FOH position.

I’ll be covering the show live while onsite through Sunday, so stay tuned. We’re presently waiting on the second dress rehearsal of the day, with semi-finals broadcast tomorrow and finals Saturday. You can view it for yourself at Eurovision TV. Just launch the MediaCentre, and you can watch the stream live at these times:

Semi-Finals

Thursday May 10 3:00pm EST

Live broadcast, appx. 2:45 length

Finals

Saturday May 12 3:00pm EST

Live broadcast, appx. 3:15 length, followed by winners interview