Our Cable for Baku

Outside view of the hall from the storage. Very well visible are the light beams of the 36 7 kW space beamers

Over 3,000 m of glass fibre and more than 4,000 m of multichannel AES/EBU+DMX lines field-proven in Baku.

Cape Cross Studio + Filmlicht GmbH technical services was again awarded the contract as the general technical service provider for Europe’s biggest TV event and got Toneheads on board as their partner for the sound reinforcement sector.Altogether the material was transported from Germany to Azerbaijan using 2 entire trains of the German Federal Railways, 100 40-ft-containers as well as 2 Boeing 747 cargo aircrafts and 110 40-ton trucks. About 300 technicians were working at the Crystal Hall, which was specially built for that occasion in Baku, to mount the mega event.

Within the lighting network 8 consoles, 14 NPUs (10 active and 4 spare units) plus 18 NSPs (14 active and 4 spare units), allocated among 11 locations in the hall, were controlling the more than 3,000 fixtures. On all locations manageable switches,  interconnected via singlemode fibre-optical lines, were being used. As connector system the HI-FIBER4 series from German manufacturer HICON was used in combination with the highly flexible 4-fibre SC-OCTOPUS PUR line from SOMMER CABLE, another German manufacturer.

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“The easy access and the full compatibility with the standardised LC connector was a crucial point for us to rely on the HICON system“, says Christian Hanno (Technical Manager of the lighting crew). And he goes on: “The panel-mount socket is plug-symmetrical both from front and rear, so the HI-FIBER4 cable plug or any combination of 4 LC connectors may be used alternatively as well.“

For wiring up the ca. 108 DMX universes (only lighting technology, without video/LED) among others the highly flexible SC-QUANTUM multipair cable from SOMMER CABLE was used. This was also employed to realise the supply lines to the mobile truss sections in the stage background. In total more than 4,000 m of this cable type were laid in the arena of Azerbaijan’s capital.

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SOMMER CABLE lines were also used for the sound wiring. Here AES/EBU connections of up to 175 m between the Rocknet hubs and the amp racks were realised with the SC-QUANTUM.