This year’s Eurovision Song Contest started with and idea from the designer, Iir Hermeliin. Seven 3-dimensional projection screens, or sails, to be flown over the stage. They should hang in almost any position, allowing the creation of different “rooms” for each song. How they would move, and what they would hang on, remained unanswered questions.

Visual act provided the solution. Each sail was hung on 3 lines driven individual motors. A forth motor moved the unit along a horizontal track the width of the stage. With Visual act the sail could be moved to any physically possible position along a predefined path.

Visual act’s partner, the scene shop Philipson & Franck, provided the sails themselves. They developed a method using glass fibre to fabricate a sail which was light in weight, suitable for back projection, and stiff enough to hang in any position.

The lighting director Per Sundin used the new Catalyst system from High End to project on the sails. The combination of Visual act and Catalyst allowed moving pictures to be places around and above the performers in virtually any position.

Eurovision Song Contest 2002, Tallinn, Estonia