Aktuelle News & Schlagzeilen

GrandMA3 system chosen for Kaija Koo stadium show in Helsinki

Finnish singer Kaija Koo celebrates a forty-year career as one of the country’s most popular artists, and anniversary activities have included staging a massive show at Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium. The one-off event featured a production design evolved by Ari Levelä (set and video) and Pekka Martti (lighting), who chose to use a full GrandMA3 system for lighting and video control.

The two have worked together as a visual team since 2016 and enjoy the creative benefits of pooling ideas and experiences to produce shows and spectaculars. This show followed an arena tour they completed at the end of 2022 featuring four Finnish female singers, one being Kaija Koo. Her management team invited Levelä and Martti to present a design for this special show. They received a brief, and the goal was to produce a maximum visual impact design that was also practical enough to implement, build and break down for a one-off concert.

The video-fronted double decked stage risers, set elements and curved, leaf-shaped LED screens surrounding the stage defined the look. This architecture came first and as it shaped up, Martti started work on the lighting design and placement of trussing and fixtures. He was also thinking that this would be an ideal moment to make the switch to all GrandMA3.

Three GrandMA3 light consoles were utilised in total. Two were running lighting - operated by Pekka Martti and Joonas Liesimaa. Liesimaa took care of the follow spots which were on a remote system with some parameters controlled via the console, plus key lighting for the band and dancers, while Martti operated all the other lights on his GrandMA3 light.

Video operator Saku Väänänen utilised the third GrandMA3 light to run all the playback video content - created by Mobb Helsinki - with both playback and IMAG running via Disguise servers. All three consoles were paired with hot backups. Around 500 lighting fixtures and forty DMX universes were in play.

Two weeks of pre-viz working in Depence R3 were allocated ahead of the show, during which time Martti - who has been a GrandMA user and advocate since 2004 - also studied a couple of GrandMA3 online tutorials and digested some YouTube videos posted by other GrandMA3 users. A video from the band rehearsals was used as a programming reference. Martti and the show creative team then had a single night on site at the stadium finalising and finessing the programming.

Lighting, video and audio equipment for Kaija Koo’s Helsinki Stadium show was supplied by Creative Technology Finland, the stage came from Megaforce in Germany and the show was produced by Warner Music Finland. Levelä and Martti will be working together again on UMK 2024, Finland’s Eurovision selection event.

(Photos: Miikka Varila)

www.malighting.com

© 1999 - 2024 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories