The beginning of March once again saw the prestigious Italian festival take place in Sanremo, Italy. Already in its 71. edition and broadcast live by RAI, the annual competition to choose Italy’s ESC contestants is a music event like no other. This year’s winners have already confirmed that they will travel to Rotterdam in May to represent Italy in the finale of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest.
With a scenography curated by Gaetano Castelli and Maria Chiara Castelli from Studio Castelli under the direction of Mario Catapano, Director of Photography for RAI, EVENT MANAGEMENT SRL was tasked to bring the elaborate stage to life in the grandiose Teatro Ariston. The setup operated by EVENT MANAGEMENT SRL included:
Lighting Setup
– 5,000 m of dynamic, linear RGBW LED strips (96 pixels per meter / 5 V)
– 200 m2 of transparent LED screen modules (3.8-mm pixel pitch / 7.8-mm pixel pitch)
– 520x power supplies (320 W / 5 V)
– 60x LED controllers
– 2x MADRIX 5 maximum LED lighting-control software (for up to 2,048 DMX universes each)
– 2x high-end computers powered by AMD Ryzen Threadripper 64-core CPUs
– 1x Christie Spyder X20 video processor / video matrix switcher
– 1x Barco Encore S3 presentation switcher
– 170 kW total power consumption
The result was an extraordinary stage design that featured an enormous depth, made use of extensive video surfaces, and took advantage of real 3D pixel mapping.
“We are very honored to have given our contribution to the creation of a scenography of such importance”, says Andrea Pellegrini, Account, Project and Technical Manager. “A special thanks goes to MADRIX, who successfully accompanied us in this adventure. That includes the consulting phase, their professional support, as well as their software, unique of its kind, thanks to which we were able to control no less than 3,829 DMX universes and 490,000 individual pixels on a single stage. We are proud having been the first company in the world to have performed such a complex scenographic lighting system in a live TV production.”
Since it was an enormous effort with 33 days of project preparation and pre-wiring, 33 days of installation, and 11 days of light-show programming, he continues by thanking everyone involved. “But our most heartfelt thanks obviously goes to the entire crew who took care of the tiring logistics and the long and particular installation of this immense lighting system, working non-stop behind the scenes. This all only has been possible thanks to their commitment and their professionalism.”
“Congratulations on this fantastic production and on achieving this record. I knew this moment would come eventually, and I have been looking forward to it for a long time. We finally have a project that shows the full potential of our MADRIX 5 control software, which was a perfect fit. I am proud of working with our terrific team. Our support team helped with patching ideas and optimizations. Our software engineers supported Andrea with an extremely quick solution which allowed EVENT MANAGEMENT SRL to control all those DMX universes in a very effective way. I can’t wait to see what other projects their team will be able to realize in the future”, adds Christian Hertel, Sales Manager of MADRIX.
Event: Sanremo Music Festival 2021
Companies: EVENT MANAGEMENT SRL & MADRIX
Location: Teatro Ariston Of Sanremo, Italy
Date: 02 – 06 March 2021
Photo: © EVENT MANAGEMENT SRL