Eurovision 2024: Every thing it’s good to find out about this 12 months’s present | Ents & Arts Information

Will Abba holograms carry out at this 12 months’s Eurovision? It is the query on each fan’s lips.

The person behind the stage design – Fredrik Stormby – who labored with Beyonce on her critically acclaimed Renaissance World Tour final 12 months, is accustomed to conserving on-stage secrets and techniques beneath wraps.

“We’ll see what occurs,” he tells Sky Information. Nevertheless it’s value noting that in addition to engaged on Eurovision each this 12 months and final, and with Queen Bey, he is additionally the lighting director for Abba Voyage.

So, if anybody’s geared up to deliver digital avatars of the Swedish supergroup – dubbed “Abbatars” – to the Swedish metropolis of Malmo, it is him.

I recommend that if something might flip discuss away from the geopolitics overshadowing this 12 months’s present (there was opposition to Israel collaborating within the competitors as a result of ongoing floor offensive in Gaza) it will be Abba.

“Most likely,” he agrees with a poker face, then provides mystically: “Alternatively, with Abba Voyage, the query is when you’ll be able to shut that circle, it would simply go on eternally into eternity.”

It is 50 years since Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad gained Eurovision, and whereas they’ve dominated out an in-person reunion at this Saturday’s Eurovision Grand Ultimate, the time would appear ripe for a digital get collectively.

They’ve not performed collectively since 1982 (on Noel Edmonds’ long-forgotten The Late Late Breakfast Present), however Abba Voyage, the digital present in East London has pulled in additional than one million and a half punters since opening in 2022 and is rumoured to be set to tour globally.

The primary Swedes to win Eurovision, it will be fairly the coup to have them on the night time – albeit via the magic of movement seize and light-weight.

However whereas lips are firmly sealed on potential digital appearances – leaving followers to look at and wait – what can we positively anticipate from the Eurovision Grand Ultimate?

The stage

At round 20 metres squared, and with a 360-degree viewing expertise, it is a full-on occasion for each performers and spectators alike.

This 12 months’s present, which can be watched by round 200 million individuals worldwide, will function huge video cubes centre stage, a moveable ceiling which might go up and down above the viewers and, in line with Stormby, “a number of sand”.

He additionally guarantees loads of color and robust traces, in tune with the “city and younger” really feel of Malmo and neighbouring Copenhagen.

The present’s official theme is “The Eurovision Lights,” apparently impressed by combining the Northern Lights and the form of a harmonic rhythm on sound equalizers. A reasonably distinctive mash-up.

Swift modifications

With 26 acts to slot in throughout the ultimate present (whereas it is a whacking 4 hours lengthy, a lot of the second half is devoted to the complicated voting system), there are many logistical calls for on the designers.

The stage crews have round 45 seconds to vary units between acts, with the ensuing pace of prop re-setting described by Stormby as “a bit bonkers”.

And it is not simply the acts who’re competing – everybody on the present’s at it, in line with Stormby.

“Every thing with this manufacturing is a contest – it is all a contest. It does not actually matter for those who work within the manufacturing or if you’re right here as a delegation, as a result of every part can be a struggle towards the clock to attempt to get it performed… After all, you wish to win and have an ideal efficiency.”

Working with final 12 months’s winner, Loreen

Stormby was a part of the 2023 Swedish Eurovision delegation working with Loreen on the lighting for her profitable entry Tattoo.

He thinks the staging – which Loreen and her group labored on creatively too – helped propel the efficiency to success, partly as a result of it “dared to remain in a single lighting state”.

He provides: “We did not essentially use all the results [available to us] however took a bit extra of a cinematic strategy to it, which is kind of unusual in Eurovision. Possibly that is what made it stand out.”

Safety

Sweden raised its terror menace degree to “excessive” final 12 months (4 on a five-point scale), and Swedish police have warned that safety can be tight across the occasion.

Stormby says that whereas safety is not a part of his temporary (it largely falls to the occasion organisers), he feels assured working within the enviornment.

He tells Sky Information: “I really feel protected working right here,” including: “I have been to a number of early auditions and the safety is all the time excessive. From my standpoint, I am glad they take something they want to consider critically. And I believe it is the place it must be, I suppose, from the organiser’s perspective.”

Learn extra:
Why are two of the songs so controversial?

Eurovision goes inexperienced

In a barely experimental strategy, the present will purpose to function completely utilizing LED and laser lights, to realize decrease fixed energy consumption.

The lighting design is made up of round 2000 lighting fixtures and 12 follow-spot techniques.

Stormby says they hope to “drive know-how ahead” through the use of a greener strategy as a “guiding star”.

Moments to stay up for

Stormby, who has sat via a number of rehearsals, provides a particular shout-out to the plentiful “mad Euro disco acts” which he says have been impressed by final 12 months’s Finnish entry Cha Cha Cha by Kaarija, which got here second within the competitors.

He additionally guarantees that as a substitute of elevating the roof, he can be reducing it.

“There is a second once we decrease the ceiling over the viewers, and it comes down actually low and we begin to work with the lights… I believe the hardcore Eurovisioners will get pleasure from that, they’re get together individuals.”

As for what he needs the viewers to remove from the night time, Stormy is evident: “Simply that that they had an ideal present, they usually acquired slightly bit drunk and had a very good time and danced beneath the lights… And that they acquired the vitality you wish to get out of a present like this.”

Sky Information can be in Malmo with updates, a dwell weblog, and all the largest information from the competition because it occurs.