Again representing her country was Hannover-born Lena, who won the event in Oslo last year with the song Satellite. In the meantime the artiste has continued to promote her new album Good News with a series of nine recent concerts in Germany's major cities.
Also along for the ride was lighting designer Jerry Appelt, who has previously designed for events like Echo, The Eurovision Song Contest 2011 itself - and musicians such as Sarah Connor, Rosenstolz, Scooter and Ronan Keating.
Jerry Appelt realised from the beginning that the incoming show needed a lighting concept that has a lot of video and fast-moving content to meet the expectations of a predominantly young audience. "The MTV Generation is familiar with this look and they want to see a lot of media content," commented Appelt.
"What we wanted was something special - a versatile scenography that provides an individual framework for each of the new songs on the latest album."
He decided to break from using simple lines by introducing seven crossbars, known colloquially by the crew as the 'doughnuts'. Each one of these finely-wrought circular rings are assembled with eight impression 120 RZ fixtures. "The impressions became first choice because the fixtures have no base; as we wanted to have something both lightweight and dynamic a conventional moving light with base was out of the question.
"Furthermore I wanted to use a flexible and dynamic lamp that was able to implement fast beam movement as well as slow, gentle fades. We always fitted the look to Lena's songs, which range from jazz and blues to modern pop. Therefore, there was a big demand for a wide colour palette, ranging from soft pastel shades to glaring, strident colours. "You can achieve wonderful effects with the impressions," says Appelt..
With significantly less movement (but offering as many colours) a further 15 impression 90 were added to the set. These were used mainly in the stage background as floor lights.
(Jim Evans)
