The 56th Eurovision Song Contest 2011 Final took place in May at the Fortuna Dusseldorf Arena in Germany. Twenty-five countries competed for the honour of winning one of the world’s most celebrated song competitions in front of an estimated studio audience of 18,000 people.
Broadcast by NDR and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) across 40 European networks to an estimated 125 million viewers, the scale, excitement and flair of the production is legendary.
Against a rig of over 5500 fixtures, lighting designer, Jerry Appelt, chose a total of 15 Robert Juliat followspots to pick out the performers against the dynamic set during the rehearsals, two semi-final shows and the all-important Final.
Six Robert Juliat Aramis 2500W HMI DMX and four Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots highlighted the main performers from front of house positions during each number, with five Robert Juliat Victor 1800W MSR followspots used as backlight from truss seats suspended behind the stage.
The show needed followspots that were powerful enough to pick out the performers amid the quantity of light put out by over 2000 moving lights and vivid video backdrops. All the Robert Juliat followspots were provided by Cape Cross of Cologne, Germany.
Said to be the most popular – and certainly the largest – Eurovision Song Contest in recent years, the ultimate winners were Ell/Nikki of Azerbaijan where the 2012 competition will now take place.
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