The Eurovision Song Contest arrived in Liverpool in May 2023, with the BBC hosting the competition on behalf of Ukraine at the M&S Bank Arena. Delivering 37 individual performances within a live broadcast environment required extensive coordination between creative, technical and Stage Management teams.
John joined the production team with responsibility for creating and maintaining the delegate stage plots. These provided a standardised source of information detailing performer, scenic and technical movements for each delegation, allowing departments to plan and pre-programme their work before rehearsals began.
Working closely with Stage Management, Technical Production and the Stage Crews, John also helped coordinate the complex changeovers between performances, with as little as 48 seconds available to transform the stage from one country’s configuration to the next.
A major development for Liverpool was the introduction of a new digital spikemark system. Working alongside the Screens department and Disguise, John helped develop, programme and implement the technology during technical rehearsals, replacing many traditional physical stage markings with information displayed directly through the LED floor.
John subsequently operated the system throughout rehearsals and the live shows, establishing a workflow that would be developed significantly further when he returned to the Eurovision Stage Management team for Vienna 2026.
If you’d like to know more about the spikemark technology, John writes about it in an article, The magic behind a Eurovision changeover.
The task of learning to use and implement a brand new type of software to indicate the scene changes for all delegate performances was one which John undertook with all of his enthusiasm and dedication. The digital spike mark software was a beneficial part of the whole show and without John’s involvement was unlikely to be as successful as it was.
Tom White, CAD manager, Eurovision 2023
