Elation Lighting Success on 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv posted: 22/05/2017
Over 800 Elation lighting fixtures used for this year's production with lighting design by Jerry Appelt; production headed by Ola Melzig
The Eurovision Song Contest is a unique experience in the world of entertainment made all the more special by use of some of the largest lighting and video systems you'll find on any show. Elation Professional was proud to have been part of this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv with over 800 lighting products used as audience and stage lighting by Lighting Designer Jerry Appelt and Eurovision Song Contest Head of Production Ola Melzig.
Perhaps no other show in the world lends itself to the use of intelligent lighting like the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). With 42 different songs to highlight over the course of three huge shows - not to mention rehearsals and a host of other performances - the flexibility engineered into today's lighting and video systems allowed the ESC design team to be highly creative when custom-designing unique looks for each performance.
Held May 9-13 at the International Exhibition Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, proportions mirrored the enormity of the production with 1816 active intelligent lights and 1000 square meters of LED screen used to decorate a performance space of roughly 350 square meters. Some 11,000 spectators attended each show with over 200 million viewers in 50 countries tuning in to watch the Grand Final on May 13.
Official Technical Event Supplier
Elation Professional served as an Official Technical Event Supplier to the 2017 show with a large portion of the intelligent lighting package made up of Elation lights. In the rig were 351 Elation Paladin hybrid strobe/blinder/wash lights, 132 Platinum FLX hybrid moving heads, 140 Platinum 1200 Wash and 70 Platinum Seven moving head LED wash lights, along with 110 SixBar 1000 LED battens. Providing the lighting, video and rigging technology for the show was PRG in cooperation with LITECOM.
Production Manager Ola Melzig has handled the technical production on many ESC shows and again mastered the myriad of production elements necessary to put on a world-class show. Melzig, who produced this year's Eurovision Song Contest in less than five months, a much shorter time period than normal, produced three spectacular broadcasts with the Grand Final marking his 30th Eurovision broadcast since starting with ESC in 2000.
Melzig, recipient of TPI's Production Manager of the Year award, was key in the decision to go with Elation for the 2017 edition of ESC. He commented, We were thrilled to have Elation as one of our Technical Suppliers this year on Eurovision. Their product range is a great fit for this show, and believe me we absolutely must have hard core lighting like this to stand up to the challenge! Eurovision puts a tremendous amount of stress on fixtures and they really came through.
Paladin debuts on Eurovision stage
The Eurovision stage, designed by Florian Wieder, featured a large circular LED stage floor with a dramatic, modern arch proscenium curving over the stage that ran visual content. The slogan for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest was Celebrate Diversity and Jerry Appelt's lighting design appropriately reflected the diversification and variety presented on stage. When Appelt was on the hunt for a strobe effect that he could place behind the huge, curved, semi-transparent LED video wall that served as the all-important visual backdrop, Melzig set up a shoot-out of fixtures in Cologne and Appelt liked what he saw in the Paladin. I wanted to create an additional layer behind the LED wall, something that had impact but that could also work together with the LED video and other lighting. We chose the Paladin and it did a marvelous job.
Making its global debut, the full-color Paladin fixtures were used in a large back wall matrix of 351 units (39 wide by 9 high) and played a prominent role in Appelt's lighting design. Paladin, a versatile hybrid RGBW luminaire with zoom, functions as a bright blinder or strobe, powerful wash light, or, because of its multiple pixel zone control, pixel map and eye candy looks. We used them independently and also pixel-mapped video across them, said Appelt, who lit the Eurovision show for the third time, having designed lighting for the 2011 and 2012 events. Paladin effects, which Appelt incorporated into a large number of songs, popped through the LED screen, sometimes as impactful strobe/blinder effects or chases and sometimes as more subtle eye-candy or warm or cold light twinkle effects, then stealthily disappeared when not in use. Some of the delegations even asked to have the Paladins used in their performance to give it more power, the designer added. Head of Production Ola Melzig was equally enamored with them, stating, The Paladin kicks ass! I love the output, the color and the zoom. It's an awesome fixture!
Audience lighting
The Eurovision Song Contest proved an opportunity for the Ukraine to show the world a positive face with enthusiastic crowds filling the International Exhibition Center for all three shows, as well as rehearsals. Most of the audience lighting for the show came from Elation's powerful Platinum 1200 Wash LED wash moving heads along with Platinum Seven LED wash moving heads.
The Platinum 1200 Washes, which house (19) 65W RGBW LEDs for plenty of power, worked from three curved trusses over the audience with more fixtures lined on trusses on each side of the arena. Platinum 1200 Washes were also positioned each side of the stage and used for sidelight. The Platinum 1200 Wash produces color washes on par with 1500W discharge fixtures, a fact not lost on designer Appelt. What can I say about the Platinum 1200 Wash? he said. Its brightness is great and
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
--
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Unio...
02/12/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Will Redefine Subscribers' Quality of Experience, Lowering Churn SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
02/12/2025
S an Nollaig
Hollywood blockbusters The Banshees of Inisherin, Barbie and Oppenheimer make their Irish TV debut
Tune into the classics such as Love Actual...
02/12/2025
Showcasing fresh Irish storytelling and emerging talent Storyland 2025 signals a fantastic time for Irish drama
RT and F s ireann/Screen Ireland are proud to...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
Elation Lighting Success on 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv posted: 22/05/2017 
