March saw the return of Sanremo Music Festival, an annual competition to choose Italy’s Eurovision Song Contest participants. Now approaching its 71st year, the live broadcast was handled by RAI with scenography curated by Gaetano Castelli and Maria Chiara Castelli of Studio Castelli. Under the direction of RAI Director of Photography, Mario Catapano, EVENT MANAGEMENT was tasked to bring the elaborate stage to life in the grandiose Teatro Ariston.
The lighting setup comprised 5,000m of dynamic, linear RGBW LED strips, 200 m2 of transparent LED screen modules, and 520 power supplies. 60 LED controllers, two MADRIX 5 maximum LED lighting–control software and two high-end computers powered by AMD Ryzen Threadripper 64–core CPUs. A Christie Spyder X20 video processor and video matrix switcher, a Barco Encore S3 presentation switcher and 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 honoured to have given our contribution to the creation of a scenography of such importance,” said 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, Pellegrini continued by thanking everyone involved. “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,” Pellegrini reported.
“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,” added MADRIX Sales Manager, Christian Hertel. “I am proud of working with our terrific team. Our support team helped with patching ideas and optimisations. 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 realise in the future.”