#251 - Ola Melzig

0:00 So I just finished recording with Ola Melzig and what a blast. I mean, I love that guy. Super interesting guy. You're in for a great podcast today. I know it's a little long, it's over two hours. I apologize. We could have gone over 3 hours to be perfectly honest. But at the end he made me really hungry talking about BBQ. So I have to go have lunch now. But we talked, of course, we talked a lot about Eurovision Song Contest, which he just finished again, and but we also talked about hockey. We talked about some other stuff. We talked about a new thing that he's about to launch, which is going to be even bigger than anything he's ever done, which I can't wait to share that info. But that'll be a few weeks from now. But anyways, I really hope you enjoy this half as much as I enjoy doing it again.

0:50 Ola is a great guy. This is episode #251 on Geezers of Gear and Please have fun. Enjoy it. Thank you so much for joining me today on this podcast #251 This episode is brought to you by Row Visual. You don't have to sacrifice quality when it comes to investing in LED displays suitable for outdoor use. The Vanish St. series is a line of LED panels from industry leader Row Visual engineered to excel in a wide range of applications. The Outstanding Outdoor Live Event solution is a continuation of the audience favored Vanish series, which began with the transparent VAT design.

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4:15 Yeah, episode 251. I'm excited today. I'm happy for today's guest. Love the guy, think he's a pretty awesome dude, and we'll talk about that more in a few minutes. And I'm also pretty happy this week, even though I'm still sick. I've been sick for frigging well it started on my birthday, June 8th and today is I don't even know what the date is today, the 20 something 26th, 7th, probably 27th. Anyways, I'm still sick and I don't usually get sick. So this is a weird one. And it just keeps lingering as you can tell from my super sexy voice. It's it's just hanging around and and so if anybody has any pointers, reach out. Tell me your wives tale methods of getting rid of this final bit of whatever it is I have.

5:08 I'm also pretty excited this week because the Panthers won the Stanley Cup. Florida Panthers has been my adopted team since they came to South Florida in 1993. I moved from Calgary to South Florida in, well, via Chicago, but in 1991 and really was jonesing for a hockey team because following the Flames when you're on Eastern Time in Florida is a little tough and you don't get very many games. And so, yeah, that was frustrating. So when the Panthers came, I just went, OK, let's grab these guys. And my boss at the time, Gerard Cohen, who owned Trackman, bought season tickets the very first year. And of course, being from France and knowing nothing about hockey, they kind of invited me to go along to all the games because they needed somebody to explain what the hell was going on.

5:59 And so I had to tell them what, you know, cross checking was and tripping and hooking and all of those different things and offsides. And every time a whistle went, they'd go what is happening? And, and I'd explain it to them. But ever since that time, I, I really got into the Panthers and in was it 96? I think they had their first run where they went all the way to the cup and didn't get it. They got blown out in four games by the Avs, but this was their third run to the Cup. So the first one I think was in 96 perhaps. The second one was last year. And again they they got beat pretty bad in five games by Las Vegas. And now this year they came back to the Cup and they actually won it.

6:44 They beat Edmonton. It got way more excited than it needed to be. They won the first three and should have probably swept it and then just kind of went asleep for three games and let the series become tied up and go to seven games. And I will tell you, I don't care if you're a hockey fan or not. I say it to my girlfriend all the time, who's British and had never seen a hockey game prior to Marcel. I think it's the most exciting sport on television, first of all, but I think it's also the most exciting live sport. And of course I'm biased because I'm Canadian, but and game seven, especially in a final, but playoff game seven in the NHL, there is nothing like it. There's no sport that you're going to watch that's like a game seven final.

7:28 And this one didn't disappoint. It was a friggin fabulous game. I know a lot of Oilers fans think otherwise, especially Rod or Red Rod Gibson red. And I made a bet and if you go to Rod's Facebook page, actually you might not get there in time, he might have already changed it back, but he had to change his profile picture to a Panthers logo. He's a die hard Oilers fan. And so we made a bet. He had to change his profile picture for a week. And again, by the time you hear this, he will have quickly changed it back to something else. Probably not even the Oilers cuz he's miserable about them right now. But anyway, it's pretty exciting. It was a fun run.

8:10 I got to go to a couple playoff games. I'm in Canada right now. Otherwise I would have been at game seven with my buddy Randy. And just an exciting time. Anytime your team wins a championship. And again, I'm biased, but I think the Stanley Cup championship is probably the hardest trophy in sports to win. So congratulations to the Florida Panthers and all of their fans. And what else? Of course, AI my favorite topic. So one of the interesting ones. I've talked to you before about Suno and audio, which are two of the big music creation apps, AI apps. And you know, there's been a lot of controversy around them because a, they're very good. You know, they actually create really cool music that it's hard to tell was done by AI.

8:59 The voices are good, the instruments are good, the guitar solos are good. It's good. I mean, I've created some songs on there that are just like, wow, like I could hear these on the radio. And but they've been sued for copyright infringement by some of the large record labels. And record companies, of course, are saying that AI are copying artist works. And the AI companies, of course, are saying, no, we're not. These are completely original creations. Our AIS are programmed to create new compositions, new and original compositions, and any resemblance to any other song or any other artist out there is completely coincidental.

9:42 I tend to believe that because that would be way too easy. That would be way too low of a bar for the legal process to shut down. You know, everybody's watching for it. So the last thing you want to do is play right into their hands and copy a song or copy an artist or copy a voice. Like people were saying that. Who was it? I can't remember which actress it was, but what's her name? I'm looking at her right now from anyways that that AI copied her voice after she turned them down to do an ad. And I don't know how that's ended up in court. But anyways, who knows where this one will go. I think it's just record companies trying to save what little they have left.

10:28 And you know, same thing when they battled Napster and everything else. You know, it's common. You can try and slow it down. You can take them into court, you can do all of these things. But at the end of the day, if they're not copying, they're not copying. And it's going to be pretty hard to prove they're copying when all of the software says otherwise. So there is a company called Materials Nexus, which is AUK based company and they have developed an innovative magnet called Magnex and they've developed that using AI, removing all rare earth elements or materials from that magnet, which is quite rare. It's quite, you know, because they're made with rare earth materials magnets.

11:13 So AI was able to analyze over 100 million compositions, which, you know, of course, accelerated research and development process and could have traditionally taken decades. And they got it done in a couple of months. And so that's pretty incredible. This is the stuff that is exciting about AI. You know, think of once they dial in on Cancer Research, think of how quickly a cure for cancer is going to happen because what's taken researchers, researchers 20 years to test and, you know, develop and create and test again and throw away and test again. And you know, they can do in minutes or days or weeks. And so I think we're going to see some significant breakthroughs not just in technology, but also in health and Health Sciences and, and biology and all of those things. Oh, this is a big one.

12:14 Top level Open AI executive, I think AVP of or no, maybe the chief technology officer at Open AI, I think. But a top executive said in a in a recent interview that some creative jobs maybe will go away, but maybe they shouldn't have been there in the 1st place. So that wasn't good, you know, kind of saying the quiet part out loud when you say that. And so that's obviously created quite a stir and it it plays into the hands of of those in our industry and others who are really freaked out about this technology coming on board. And last but not least, you are going to. So my recording platform where I'm recording this podcast on allows for something that they call AI voice, which means that I can basically type in whatever I want. I can insert a paragraph, I can insert, you know, a book chapter, whatever I want.

13:17 And it will read that in my voice with some, you know, attitude and some passion and some emotion. And it sounds pretty damn real. And so it's crazy, but I wanted to share this with you because I actually want you to hear how far AI has come. And so I've got a cold right now. You can hear my voice is raspier and crappier than normal. And it has actually copied my voice with the cold. And so I didn't have to read into it or do anything. It just went back through my most recent podcasts, duplicated my voice, and then read whatever I typed in. So what I did was I just took today's bio for today's guest who is Ola, Ola Melzig.

14:10 And I just took the bio and I copied and pasted it into this AI voice app within my recording platform. And what you're about to hear was created by AI, not by me. And so again, AI just read the words that I gave it and you're gonna hear. It's kind of freaky. It's freaky how good it is and coming very, very soon, you'd be able to do it with your face too. So basically, I can give it words and it's gonna use my mouth, my face, and read those words to you and my voice. Insane. I mean, I'll just be able to sleep all day and mail in my podcast.

14:51 Not gonna happen. So one thing I did wanna say about this is that this is not a sign of things to come. So if you're a sponsor of our podcast, we're not gonna suddenly start doing sponsor readings via AI. It's not to become lazy. It's none of those things. I'm only doing this right now because I wanted you to see how far it's come. And so before I go on to this Ola bio, I would like to ask once again for you to like and subscribe our podcast. It really does help like and subscribe and comment on YouTube, like on YouTube, subscribe on YouTube as well. It really does help us grow the audience. And Speaking of growing the audience, if you would like to be on the podcast, please send an e-mail to producer@geezersofgear.com.

15:40 That will go to Sarah. Sarah will put you in the loop and get you scheduled. And obviously, it's a very busy summer, so we've got a couple of openings still for July that we're trying to fill. And so if you're ready to record in July, please just reach out to producer@geezersofgear.com and Sarah will get you going. So again, what you're about to hear is a bio read by AI for today's podcast, which is Ola Melzig. So enjoy. Ola Melzig began as a stagehand working on local shows in Stockholm 1989. Over the last 20 years he has gone on to produce high profile shows beginning with the massive Eurovision Song Contest, but also the Commonwealth Games, the Nobel Prize Awards, and recently serving as Executive Producer of the American Song Contest as well.

16:35 In February 2017, Ola was awarded Production Manager of the Year at the annual TPI Awards in London. Ola is married to Joan Lyman since 2006. They have six grown up children and the family split their time between Stockholm, Sweden and Austin, TX. So please join me in welcoming Ola Melzig back to Geezers of Gear episode #251 Hola. Cuckoo. You know, I always want to say como estas after that, but I'm sure it's not the first time you've ever heard it. Bien bien. I speak Spanish bien. I've been. To Mexico.

17:15 I live in South Florida so you you almost speak Spanish even if you don't speak Spanish because it just punches you in the face a few times a day over a few 100. Times in Texas, Yeah, same in. Texas yeah so Speaking of getting punched in the face we just had a technology little go round here me and Ola trying to get Chrome to agree to allow him to record this podcast and so here we are recording on your cell phone after all of. That yeah so so let's let's not well into technology because clearly we don't know anything about that that we should talk about BBQ or something that that we. We'll get there, we'll get there. I want to get to barbecue, but but certainly we're going to talk about technology a whole bunch. So you were actually just telling me a story about your wife doing a project for a horror movie. Tell me about that on on the Air now, because that's pretty interesting.

18:13 Yeah, she was, she was working, doing promotion for a horror movie about the clowns and the clown Motel somewhere in Nevada. And before the big premiere, obviously the the movie need to be subtitled. And and she was just like, how, how am I going to do this? And then she founded AI Rowboat that did it for don't tell the client because, because maybe we charge a couple more hours than than than it actually took to do it. But it, it, it was, it was almost, it was scary. It, it, it, it's actually, it's a little bit frightening because it can do so much and it has happened so fast. Well, that's the crazy part.

18:59 Like, if you think back one year, I don't think one year ago we had yet really heard about ChatGPT in the public, You know what I mean? Like it wasn't out in the wild or out of the wild yet. It wasn't mainstream yet. And in one year, what has happened, it's just gone completely nuts. And I just, I just shared your bio. I just shared your bio with you and everyone listening just heard your bio read by AI. And it's funny because like I said, for the past few weeks, I've had this cold that I can't shake. And it's using my voice with the cold, not my, not my normal voice. So I have no idea how it's doing this stuff, but it's it's crazy. It's really crazy.

19:42 Yeah. It's it's Terminator is happening right now. Well, you know, you are a very interesting use case when it comes to AI because not only, not only like your own work, like I, you know, and I want to talk about this a little bit because I read that you do you start every project on a spreadsheet and it's really interesting because I can only imagine how many lines are on that sheet, you know, considering the amount of gear you're using on especially Eurovision, but. AI can create so many shortcuts and so many just helpful things when it comes to tedious tasks like that.

20:28 And and that's, that's some of the stuff that's exciting to me. The stuff that's not exciting is where it, you know, where guys who are running it at programming MA consoles will become, you know, useless. Like we don't need them anymore. I don't know that that's coming anytime soon, you know, because I think the industry is going to really block that in a sense, but. Let's do that. Let's, let's block that because you, you know, in the end of the day, unless you're performing something for robots, you need a human touch to it. And, and there are there are things that so far only humans can do, and I'd like to cling on to that as long as possible. Yeah.

21:12 But when you think of the tedious things like where every guy programming a show or girl programming a show on an MA console or whatever has to sort of create that foundational stuff and put in all the same stuff that they always have to put in, but for this particular configuration. And they may be sitting there for a day, two days, 3 days, just putting in lines of code basically that can be replaced. You know, that's the stuff that takes your programming time down from 2 weeks to maybe one week or whatever. And if you think of the use of effects engines as a great example. So this is just taking that maybe a step further where true. That true that.

21:54 Yeah, the basic stuff, you know, the basic stuff that that you don't, that doesn't have like passion and and human just, you know, feel and stuff like where you can look at it and go, I love what you did there, you know, like the the lines of code stuff. I I think are are going to be a welcome change. Yeah, no, I, I think you're right. And I think that's going to happen. And and you know, it's, it's, it's right around the corner. So let's see. Well, it's right there. Oh, like it's right there. It's right there. I think that I think we're the ones who are slowing it down in our industry. And again, it's, it's some of it is conspiracy theory, some of it is panic, some of it is very well founded and, and, and good to slow it down, you know, And one example I keep using is at LDI this past year, there was one company that basically had a sign up that said, you don't need a programmer anymore, or you don't need a light up lighting operator anymore or something like that. And people were going in the booth and just berating this guy, like, what are you doing?

23:03 And it was some kind of a club, a club lighting controller or whatever that that could program itself based on, you know, some input that you were giving it. Like this is the mood, this is the theme, this is the type of music, the genre, whatever. And it just goes and programs itself. And so the guy was the guy probably presented it wrong if nothing. Else maybe he was at the wrong trade show. Perhaps. Yeah, perhaps. When you're marketing to a bunch of lighting operators and programmers and designers, the last thing you want to do is say you are. Yeah, you're unnecessary. Mr. Yeah, yeah, it's totally true. But I, you know, again, I'm, I'm somewhere between excited and scared to death about all of it, you know, and. And me, me too.

23:50 And that's usually not me because I'm usually the first one to embrace new technologies. But this, what scares me is that, as you said, it was like 12 months ago, we had barely heard about it and now it's everyone is talking about it and everyone is doing it and it's implemented everywhere. I mean, it's just like it's, it's at the really fast pace and it's hard. It's so hard to keep track of. And it's going to get faster because there's a, there's sort of an exponential growth component that's going to start coming into play, already has, but we're going to really start seeing the impact of some of these things. And you know, there's already stuff like, you know, where they're doing the simulations where actual fighter jet pilots are doing dog fights against AI fighter jet pilots and the AI pilots are winning everyone, like they're winning every single one. So now you start looking at the ethical boundaries and stuff where what if Russia or China or Iran starts creating AI fighter jets and, you know, kind of like really smart kamikaze jets, you know, that are just going in and just, you know, obliterating everything.

25:07 And they don't care about human life because there isn't any, you know, not in their planes anyways. They're just. Yeah, so there, there's some scary components to all of it. But like, have you have you started even just using ChatGPT for for tedious tasks yet? No, no, no. That's interesting. And the main reason is actually I've been so, so damn busy the past ten months. So, and, and because obviously Eurovision was a handful and, and, and then I, I just came out of, I, I had a plan to do it while I was in a sick leave.

25:50 I replaced my left knee a couple of weeks ago. But then the phone rang and I got busy again. So yeah. Yeah, well, hey, that's a really good problem in a sense, right? But. It is. It is, but it's but I need to. And I asked Joan to look into it like, hey, learn this and teach me. Well, I'll tell you in the quickest lesson I can possibly give you is first of all, start like basically download the app onto your phone and you can now just talk to the app and you can say, hey, build me something that does this, that looks like this, that might have some background in this and do it in the style of this.

26:31 And you just talk to it like it's a human and you're giving a human instructions. And you'd be surprised what comes out of it. So it's all about the. Prompting Do you know what a good friend of mine did what he asked? He asked that he asked for a heavy metal song about ula Melzi doing Eurovision. Yeah. With with some in English, but with some typical Estonian catch phrases. Yeah. And it was so weird, but it was awesome. Yeah, so weird. It was like I made a methyl song. It was like, you can't even play a tune on the guitar. What you're talking about? I did this with AI.

27:12 It was like this other player was like, holy shit. Well, and I don't know if he told you how easy it was, but I've been doing a bunch of that stuff. There's these two particular apps that I've downloaded and been using a bunch. One is called Suno and the other ones called Audio. They're the two most popular music creation apps. And you can say anything like you could say, create a disco song about Martin Lighting that, you know, talks about their entire history from, you know, the 80s until today. And within 5 minutes you'll have this incredible song. And you could say, now change it from disco to country and boom, you got a country song that does it, you know? I mean, it's we're only going to become Max Martin in the end of the day.

28:00 Millions of dollars. Millions. Hundreds. We'll make hundreds of dollars, 10s of. Hundreds of dollars, yeah, plant stubs in Austin and it's going to be. Great. We'll be 100 heirs, yes. I don't know, like that's that's really where I get into a lot of that. Two things where I get concerned heavily about AI. One is wars, you know, weaponry because, you know, again, you take away all the ethics and all the human components of war and it becomes very, very scary at that point where you can just have massive global devastation. And the other one is, is, is creative, especially the arts, you know, whether it's music or painting or lighting design or any of those things. I don't want to see those replaced by AI necessarily. I want to see them supported by AI but not replaced by AI and. I, I there's AI plug in for Adobe that I down. I did download that on Eurovision and and just write in what you wanted to to do and it's it's. That's pretty remarkable.

29:11 Yeah, I, I kind of was like, I, I, I asked you to draw a picture of acid cats on mushrooms or something like that. And that's what you got. That's where you got. Like exactly why don't like Wow, this is this is weird but. It makes weird mistakes, you know, like for example, I, I've got a geezers of Gear logo that I use or image that I use quite often in newsletters and, and social media and stuff and nobody notices. But the singer in the band has three arms, you know, or, or you'll tell it, you know, geezers of Gear and it and it'll do geezers of beer or geezers of Gearlets or, you know, like it'll just make up words and add words into it and stuff when you're clearly saying it.

29:57 But you know, it just messes up. And I I. Have I have a Actually I I'm wearing a perfect example of that. But this is made on purpose. You see what band I have on my T-shirt? Yeah. Kiss. Yeah, that's hilarious. That is funny. I love that shirt. I love. That shirt I won with Bob Marley and says Jimi Hendrix. That's amazing. I love that. And how many people say something to you? A lot of people really, but I think that I found, I found, I found a website calledtshirthell.com and I got a bunch. One of them was these, but the one that I got most comments about is that it says it says God Bless America, except New Jersey.

30:48 Fuck New Jersey. I love that and tend to agree with it sometimes. Yeah, I mean, every anyone that has ever been at Newark will agree to that. Newark is a nightmare that is my least favorite probably on earth. It's my least favorite airport. It's yeah, it's up there with Sean Segal. OK, so doll dolls in in Washington is north. Paradise Dulles is pretty nasty. Yeah, that's pretty. Pretty nasty. And then, of course, Charles, the Gold on this other palm apply. Yeah. Have you ever flown into Moscow? Yes to both airports, both the brown one and the one that chaos in 5 shades of brown and some some bronze and then or brass and then the new one which is actually quite nice, but.

31:36 I haven't been to the new one. I was at the old one. All I remember at the old one was immigration started like it was all concrete, like you were in a barn or something. But it started really wide and it went down like this to a very narrow point where there was like 2 immigration officers at the front. So there was this crowd of like 3000 people that was going into one entrance point and, and it was, you know, the worst. This is, this is so funny because yeah, I remember that. And, you know, if you want to relive that, try to enter America through JFK, Yeah. I've done that, it's now. It's a it's a perfect replica.

32:17 It's a little fancy, but it I'm just like that information. I mean, read a manual of the crowd control people call Disney do something. Just don't do that. Montreal used to be really bad too, but they've improved. But Montreal, you used to have to go like upstairs, through a hallway, down some stairs, around a thing, back up some stairs, and it was just lined up for miles. And it's the. Same in it's same in Dallas. That is what's worth where you go in a in a mile and a half radius circle covering 3 floors before you hit the migration. It's just. I can't say I've done that one, not recently anyways. This This is why I tried to fly directly to Austin these days. Yeah, Austin manages it well.

33:06 No, but at least there's not so many idiots, yeah. They're friendly. They're friendly as they're. Pissing you off? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got that southern, southern charm. I was just there a few weeks ago for a for a shitty reason for for Craig's funeral. Wow. And. I couldn't make it because of my knee surgery. Yeah, well, it's crazy because I flew in on my way up. I'm up in Canada right now. I have a house up in Canada similar to you. I split my time, but between Florida and and Western Canada. Nice, nice. And so I had, I changed all my flights and stuff after Craig passed away so that I could go through Austin because it was the exact same day I was going to Canada. And you know, of course the airlines screwed up and delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed to a point where I missed the actual church funeral. But I got to the party later, the celebration of life or whatever.

34:07 You know, this is the part where that Craig would would prioritize, right? Of course, I think, I think he's, he's OK with that. Yeah, well, it was incredible too. I mean, it was just like incredible for all the wrong reasons, but and it was so sad because they had this huge screen playing all these unbelievable images of Craig and, you know, just one of those guys that always had the biggest smile and always. Was having a good time. And. Super happy. Yeah. So amazing. Guy, amazing guy. Yeah, it's but anyways. It. It got me to Austin, you know, which I haven't been to for a couple of years. So yeah, I like Austin.

34:48 It's a cool city. I love Austin I we've been there since we've been there since 2000 and yeah, Christmas 2006, so. Oh wow. Yeah, 18 years now in the making and I really, I really miss it now because I, we haven't been there since we came back after Christmas and New Year's holidays, mid January. And then, you know, then we've been busy with Eurovision stuff. So we, we haven't been back. And then directly after Eurovision, I did my knee surgery. So my first day I'm allowed to fly is August 7th, which also happens to be the day we're on a plane back to Austin.

35:29 Good for you. So do you do, do you do like half a year there, half a year in in Stockholm or? It now it's, it varies from year to year. Obviously, when I was working with American Song Contest, I would do 70% of my time in Austin. I have family here in Sweden. So so I have kids, they're adults. So you know, they're, they all have jobs and stuff. But but still, you know your parents. That's a lifetime sentence that you need to respect. Lifetime. Yeah, it's like. A Kinder Egg that refused to give or stop giving. It's true. Yeah, very. Tough.

36:10 Yeah. You can't just ditch them. You can't just ditch them year round. You got to show up every once in a while and be a parent. Yeah, yeah. For birthdays and holidays and all that stuff. So yeah. Well, it's the same with my My son lives in Florida. He's 20 and it's just the past couple of years that I've started coming here for 1/2 a year and it's because I'm divorced now. So it's me and my girlfriend come here and my son pops in when he wants to and stuff. But but he's like, Dad, you're going for four months or five months and I'm like, hey, you're welcome anytime, buddy. And so, yeah, it's tough though, you know, 'cause I'm used to seeing him every day and, and now it's on FaceTime.

36:51 But it it's also it's and I noticed that really early in my in my American life that it's Americans have such a beautiful take on it because you know, you are you're forced away from home because of university studies, sports, whatever true at an early stage. And it's not only, I mean, you're not only leaving your city or leaving your state, you know, thousands of miles and it's, it's just not something that you lay sleepless over. It's just, it's so normal. And, and that is not the case in, in Sweden.

37:35 Sure. I mean, we traveled the world before culture and, and IKEA and, and Volvo and blah, blah, blah. But you know, when you relocate in Sweden, it's, it's really hard to move more than the six hour drive away from, from from where you started. So it's it's. It's a, it's a cultural thing. Yeah, yeah, I think so. It's. You know, and I, The thing is I actually recommend it, you know, because like for example, you know, my son's a racing driver and last year he was gone for five months, I think to the UK. He was racing in the UK and I flew over a couple of times for races, but other than that, I didn't see him.

38:17 I saw him on FaceTime every day and, and talked for 10 minutes or whatever and, and he, he had a great life over there and learned so much being on his own without either of his parents, you know, learned how to. It's a great experience and everyone should get it. Yeah, everyone. I completely agree. And now with FaceTime and and everything, it's so much that you sure? You're not really away from each other, you know? I mean it, it's like he's in Chicago right now because he went to Chicago to see a concert that he wanted to see some hip hop artist or something. I don't know who it is. What's wrong with him? But he so he's got racing friends from Chicago who he knows from racing on, simulator on on because he uses a simulator system through a thing called with I racing is an online racing platform.

39:07 So he's got racing friends that he's known for two or three years that he races with all the time, but he's never met them. And so he went to this concert last night with them and I was like, how was that? And he goes, oh, it was so cool to meet them. It was like, I've known them for years, you know, But that's, that's so different from when we were kids, you know, because when, when we were young, you were either friends with somebody or you weren't, but you didn't have online friends 'cause there was no online, right? Exactly. So, but it's, it's cool, you know. It is cool. It is cool, yeah. And my my ex-wife was a long distance relationship. She was in Chicago and I was in Canada. And this was when, you know, phones cost a dollar a minute and forget about cell phones. They didn't even exist, you know, and, and you know, I, I say to kids all the time, like, you don't know how lucky you've got it where you can have a girlfriend who lives far away and you can still see her every day and stuff. You know, I couldn't do that.

40:05 Like my my son, his first serious girlfriend, they slept together every night. Because they both had their phones on all night, like, just on FaceTime or whatever, right? I mean, it's adorable, but ridiculous at the same time, you know? But this is true. Yeah. And also lacking some privacy. I'm like, 'cause I'd walk by his bedroom and I'm like, what the hell is he snoring? And then I'd realize it's her snoring through the phone. You know, it's not even him snoring. Oh. That's funny. Or it's the cat snoring on the other end or something, you know? But yeah. Yeah, well, if you asked her, it was definitely Cat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

40:47 So obviously I want to talk a whole bunch about what you just went through. You know, first of all, it's got to be cool that when you do this show in in Malmo, Sweden, right? Because that's like your your stomping grounds, your home territory. Yeah, I was born and born and raised in in Malmo. So coming back, doing the the biggest music entertainment show in the world, yeah, back home is, is of course, it's amazing. And and not only that, it's the second time I do it because we were there in 2013 as well, right in the same arena. And I mean, that's of course you. Know special Oh no kidding like I can't even imagine what that's like other than the guest list stuff like where are you? Can you give me a couple tickets like your list? You know that's that's.

41:37 Yeah, and that's, but we we didn't have a class reunion the first first one since 1984 because no one actually ever put any effort into oh, we should have a class reunion or 82 or when I was like a long time ago, we graduated 9th grade. So and it was it all came up when I realized I'm going to spend the whole spring in Malmo. So, so me and the two MY2 classmates that I've kept contact with throughout the years, we set up a Facebook group and you got a bunch of people to show up to this class reunion.

42:17 And of course, every single one of them was like, hey, so how about well. You were by far the coolest guy in that class reunion. Obviously when you're the guy who's about to be doing Eurovision in. This town, I mean, you're way, way. This is why I waited plus 40 years to do it. So Oh my God. Something I I always saw myself as. You know, when Pete Peter Griffin goes to his class reunion dressed as an astronaut, cowboy, millionaire, that's what I wanted. To be that's hilarious that's so funny. Peter Griffin. Yeah. So yeah, I mean that had to be really cool where like all all the girls that used to diss you when you were young and go you're ugly get away from me I don't want nothing to do with you yeah. And now they're.

43:01 Fat and gross. They're fat. And gross and you're doing Eurovision. Yeah, I hang out with celebrities and stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know. I I use 3000 moving lights. Yes, how about that? I had 708 active universes. What do you got? Yes, yeah. What do you got? Oh, you work in a school kitchen, correct? That's so funny. That is so funny. That's really cool though. I mean, what a, what a cool, what a cool thing to be able to do to go back. Yeah, it was. But, you know, at the same time, it was frustrating because we obviously we stayed at. There were so many people, you know, from the normal world. Yeah, that's like, how is she going to stay with your parents for the whole duration?

43:53 I was like, what's wrong with you? Why would I do that? Yeah. So obviously we stayed at the hotel, which was lovely because it was part of the security parameter. So I would take the elevator from my room down to my office without passing any security port whatsoever. And then I went through catering and into the arena. No security because I was already in the zone. That's awesome. But the frustrating thing was we were in Melmo, I think it was exactly 7 week was downside production. And I managed to see my parents three times in that wow. And then and they're they live 3 miles from the arena. Really.

44:41 Yeah. Was that because you were busy or? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, your focus is when you go into a show like this, you know, or any show really of any size, it's like it, it just consumes you. It, it of course really, really consumes you. And when you're, you know, in the end of the the day, when you're, I mean, I never left the office before 8:00 PM and my mom goes to bed at 8:30. So what? What would be the point to to go and see them? Yeah, go kiss her goodnight and and go back to your hotel. Yeah, so I get that. Well, and they think, well, how could you be in town and not spend time with me? But hey, sorry, like you want to see my schedule?

45:24 Yeah. They, they understand it. Yeah. They're, they're they were really cool about it because the same thing happened in 2013, to be, to be very honest. And I So they trained them. Yeah, I trained them well. Yeah, yeah. No, I completely get that. It used to happen to me all the time and it still does because I don't know if you know where Calgary is, but I was I was, I was born in a tiny little town, raised in Calgary, and my house is in a town called Canmore, which is about an hour and a half drive from Calgary in the Rocky Mountains. So I mean, I have this unbelievable location with these unreal views and stuff. And my family and friends used to always say, why don't you ever come into Calgary and spend time with us?

46:06 And I'm like, because it sucks. Like I'm in the mountains in this beautiful place with bears and elk in our backyard and stuff like come out here. We got lots of bedrooms. So over the years, people have finally figured it out that, you know, it's probably better that we just booked some time and come out to the mountains. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. I got to ask you, why does cameras suck at eyes suck as much as they do? And and I also here's another interesting question. Did did you realize that, that the Stanley Cup winners, the Florida Panthers, did you see how did you see how many Canadians that are in that team?

46:48 There's not that many. There's like 12 or 14 Canadians. I don't think so. I don't think so. I looked at, I looked at, oh really? Because I, I was interested in too, because I know there was two or three. It turns out to be 4 Swedes. And then there was like, oh, actually, Americans are almost a minority in this in this team, Yeah. I'm a, I'm a huge Panthers fan and I'm in Oilers territory right now. So the past few weeks have been pretty sketchy because I've been walking around with a Panthers hoodie on every day and people are like, what are you doing? You know? And but yeah, our our captain is a is a Finn and was the first Finnish captain to win the Stanley Cup. Well you know there is a perfectly good explanation this and you might know not know this, but fins. Really.

47:39 If you think Canadian, suck it, I suck it. Try the fins. I mean Oh my God. Spoken by through Swede. Useless, useless. It was like you can. No, no, no. I, I see we're going to have some battles going forward. Harold yes, because this is true. I, I'm very Canadian when it comes to hockey and, and you know, prior to like probably the 2000s, it was about 8085% Canadians playing in the NHL. And really it started in, in the 80s when I think it was 88 or something, when it was Makarov was the first Russian that was signed in the NHL and he played for Calgary, my team. And that's when, you know, it just started to be a revolving. Door.

48:26 The Red Wings. Remember the Red Wings? The whole Russian yeah, line up, yes, Yeah, it was, it was. But you know, it wouldn't have happened without the Swede. Which one? Boreus alming, Boreus Salming. Very good play. It was the first European. We had a really good Swede on on Calgary too. Kent Nilson. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then, Oh no, Kippersof I think is a Finn, right? Mika Kippersof. Wasn't Matt's Matt's Nasman in Calgary? No. Matt Snazlund was in Toronto or Vancouver. I think Vancouver. No. Oh, it was in Vancouver. Maybe it was I. Think so, Yeah. I think it was Vancouver.

49:09 It's funny. I always think you. I think of you as an Austinite for some reason, not not as a as a Swede. And I never expected to have a hockey conversation with you. Guys right, right, yeah, we actually me and Jean Lavier, we, we go to hockey in Austin every every ever since we got since we have the AHL team in Austin now so we have the Texas Stars and I, I love that I love the AHL because it's a little bit more passion and, you know fighting. So hard to get up to the big leagues, you know? Yeah. Yeah, because NHL is so much disciplined it it's just like but but well. 'Cause they're getting paid too much money now, you know, they're getting paid 7, eight, $10 million a year.

49:49 They don't want to get hurt, you know? Exactly. Yeah. They want to live their nice life. You know, it's funny because since winning the Stanley Cup, so yesterday, one of the players has a house on Las Olas Blvd. in Fort Lauderdale, like right on the water on the intercoastal. And so there's all these videos. They basically a bunch of the players piled into a golf cart with the Stanley Cup in the back between Barkov's legs. And they drove over to a bar called the Elbow Room, which I don't know if you've ever been there in Fort Lauderdale, but it's a, it's a historic drunken party place in Fort Lauderdale, right on the beach. It's been there for a 50-60 years.

50:31 It was a big part of the spring break sort of culture in in Fort Lauderdale. But anyways, so they, they went up and they had a blocked off area in the top floor and it's all open to the street. And so they were filling the Stanley Cup with beer and then pouring it over the railing to fans that were down below. They were serving beer to fans down below, pouring it out of the Stanley Cup. So then a bunch of the players grab the cup and they went and waited for the light so they could cross the street carrying the cup and they dove into the ocean with the cup, you know, just splashing straight into the ocean with the Stanley Cup it was. Hilarious. It was hilarious. Just a bunch of knuckleheads with the Stanley Cup, like that guy who has to guard the Cup is probably just constantly going, oh, God, what are you doing?

51:21 Why? Why? Why? Please don't. Please don't take it in salt water. This thing's like, 100 years old. Don't do it. So. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, it's hilarious. It's been fun watching them, you know, with the stuff that they're doing. But I would guess that Barkov is going to take it over to Finland. Oh yeah, yeah. For a couple of days. I think that all the players gets like a week with a trophy. Yeah, well, I think they all get a couple of days or something, but yeah, everyone gets to do what they want with it within reason. But like people will take it out fishing or they'll take it to, you know, a hunting trip or something. Like just they do crazy things with the cup. It's so funny.

52:04 It's funny what they think is real important. But but yeah, Sweden is is always constantly a pain in Canada's ass and fortunately we beat you most years. But. Yes, Yeah, you've been lucky in the past couple of years or it's more like we. Lucky in the past couple of years like what, the past sixty years? Is that what you mean? It's. Like. You can count on one hand the times that you've beat us. In a tournament, Well, I as, as far as I know, you still haven't done the double, winning the Olympics and the World Cup in the same year. So I'm sorry because there's only one team that ever did that.

52:46 Well I'm going to have to Google this. I'll have to use ChatGPT and go get some. Answers to that 2006. I'll come back to you on that one, yeah. I can tell you right now it's Sweden in the 2006 Olympics. Really. And then we won the World Cup the same year and I think that was the. Year that was that, the year that like we couldn't bring NHL players. Yeah, you were not allowed. Well, there you go. Yeah, there you go. You. Didn't get a visa office to to come. In no, no, it wasn't a visa the NHL, because it was right after, as I recall, it was right after a strike, a player strike. And so they wouldn't let them come over to play in the Olympics. So we had no, we had no NHL players, which is ridiculous. But that that would have applied to the Swedish team as well. Where is your excuse now?

53:34 Well when you've got 4 Swedes and 400,000 freaking Canadians playing in the league, I mean you know, it's just a numbers game at that point. Yeah, but you know, it doesn't matter how many you are if you all suck you. Know Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean. There have been some good Swedish players. I'll leave it at that. Yeah, One. There's been a few, there's been a bunch. There's been a whole lot of them, yeah. So, you know, going back to to Eurovision, which is a big reason why we're here talking this one. This year, 2024, Eurovision broke so many world records, you know, and also one of the things I read and I think you might have even sent us this note was it, it was the first major show running all content through a new version of Simpty, I guess, which is called St. 2110.

54:34 And so I want to learn a little bit about that 'cause I remember using Simpty for a lot of things, but I didn't realize it was still being updated and stuff. So maybe you can, you can talk a bit about that. But also, you know, audio like tons and tons of L acoustics and and the lighting list is just insane, you know? It this isn't it? Yeah, it it is and and. 708 active universes like that's just. What? Plus plus another 700 pixel map for you to disguise media service? Unbelievable. Who's counting? Yeah, it's just ridiculous. Like how did this show get this big? Well, the the thing was, well, it's you want the long version or the?

55:23 Sure. No, we got time. So Eurovision was the studio production up to 2000. When Sweden won it In 1999, the executive producer decided like, let's bring this into a big arena, let's turn it into more like a live show than ATV studio production. So we went into the Globe Arena in Stockholm and produce it in a completely different way and tons more cameras and 12,000 people in the audience and, and you know, 650 moving lights, which was an enormous, that is moving light back in, back in 2000. It was like, what are you doing? That's crazy. Well, and they weren't as reliable as they are today either, so that had to be a bit of a pain in the ass, yeah. And it was actually the first real show that the bear Light Veritosa did.

56:14 Really. It had done the medal stage at the Olympics in 2000, that spring and and you know, the medal stage at the Olympics. What is that 24 moving lights now? Now it was like every single of those 1999 DMX channels were at use. Sarah Clawson was there. It was, it was, it was lovely. And that's where it began. Because we had LED, we had LED walls on wireless radio, controlled risers so we could move around LED screens. And again, this is 2000.

57:00 It was like it was crazy. We had a big Schoenberg system, so we had moving trusses and you know, it was it was over the top. And and then from there on it, it kind of became a double challenge and it became a tech competition as much as a song competition in because obviously you want to outdo the previous broadcast. So it's, and we early on we discovered that since since this is, this is a show that is what differs your vision from many other shows is that we're allowed to talk about it.

57:54 It's not like when you work with, you know, Beyoncé that, that you know, God forbid if you take a picture of your catering meeting catering, you're fired. Your vision is completely opposite. We released the set design like five months before your show or six months before your show. We leak stuff on purpose to the to the media, because we want to keep the momentum leading up to this, to the. I think that's brilliant. I think that's a brilliant move. I think it's a brilliant because it just. It. Raises everything up. The anticipation and excitement around the show. It does, it does, but, but it's also very interesting with it is that it's, it gives you a perfect marketing platform for manufacturers because they are free to speak about they, they, we, we work with something, we call them official technical partners. So and we, we don't receive anything for free. We pay a reasonable rental price, but we have good discounts, but we never get anything for free. And there's a reason for that.

59:02 If you get something for free, you're going to lack on one of the most important things, the most important thing, which is 100% support when she goes wrong. And also some authenticity, like did you pick this because it was free or did you pick this because it was the right product to use for that perfect situation or whatever? Yeah. And and it's so funny because there is one global rental company that always accuse manufacturers for giving stuff away to your vision for free besides those years when they do the supply. That's. Funny and they enjoy the same benefits. So so because it is beneficial for the the rental companies as well, because they get a handling fee, they first of all, they get a great investment opportunity. Yeah, yeah, all the support they want. And if they're they choose not to invest, well, they still get money to handle the equipment that they didn't spend a cent on investment.

1:00:08 So it's literally money for nothing. And their existing rental house can go out and do their existing inventory can do other shows. Well, and I mean, let's face it, you know, for like Martin, for example, to put the Mac one out on a show this big for Ayrton to put the salami light as you call it, or the kailami or however it's. Pronounced yeah, calamari. You know, for them to put that out on a show this size and not only just to showcase it as a new product, but for it to be reliable, like these things are right out of the gate coming out and being behaving well and stuff that's. Huge.

1:00:55 It is huge. And I mean, trust me, we use the living daylights out of victories from houses operating 20 hours a day for for wild. So because we have a day shift and night shift of programmers. So you know, the venue never sleeps. It's because they it's, you know, first of all, it's like, as we said, you have 700 something universes of parameters to control and be creative with. So, and everything starts with a four week of previous to have, you know, the basics of the show. You have to have around 80% of the show in your system before you go into rehearsals to be able to accommodate all the changes, all the requests of changes that comes with the delegations and openings and intro likes and whatnot. But it's, it's, it's a massive, massive, massive setup. And the ST2110 actually original from one, one of our, our technical partners, which was megapixel because we were in a meeting together with CT trading technologies in Sweden and, and megapixel talking about, you know, possibilities. And, and it was, you know, it was a perfect investment opportunity for CT because they needed that. That's, that's the processors that they they're using on all their screens.

1:02:26 They already have a big, big inventory of the of the of the megapixel processors, but they were interested also in upgrading to the to the 8K and VR processors. And they were, they were offered a very genuine good discount on that, which would boil over to me at the next stage. And it was in one of those, one of those meetings they said, hey, have you considered doing this in 2110? And Nicholas from CT is like, well, yeah, if, if that's a possibility, that would be, that would be awesome.

1:03:13 And, and I was like, yeah, this is cool. And just frantically Googling, what the hell is SD 2110? I was like, I have no idea. And I realized that it is the new standard for content distribution, any sort of content distribution within television. So it is the new standard that's, it's going to be the world, the new worldwide standard of how you, how you feed broadcast content or any sort of content. And, and it's all fiber based. There is not a single piece of copper in the setup. And we were distributing content up to speeds of 2.2 terabytes per second.

1:03:56 Jesus. And, and, and, and I was just like, well, that's cool. And then there's like, well, how much is that really? And then you start thinking about what is your download speed on on your high speed Internet at home that you pay plenty of dollars for. And that's when you start realizing how how much data that really is massive. It's massive. And it went without a glitch. So that is. Amazing. That's so impressive. And, and mega piece of what it's all about, you know, that will add the value to our partnership that we need we because you know, the Eurovision, yeah, yeah, we can do that all day long. And you know, a lot of suppliers are using our our processors. There's nothing new with that.

1:04:47 But if you guys are willing to to swim out to very dark and murky waters and go for STST 2110, we can make that happen for you. So we, we decided that OK, let's try this. So obviously the next call was with these guys because we need the cards in the servers to support this and, and I think they're like $15,000 a pop and we have had 10 servers. So I was like, well, that's not going to work. But again, we have a long lasting relationship with these guys from Eurovision. They've been an official technical partner in the past.

1:05:30 And I was like, hey, wouldn't this be an enormous marketing value for you guys if we did this? And it's like, but we're going to need your help. And no, I'm not going to, we're not going to pay, pay $15,000 for a card. And I can assure you that credit technology would also not pay that money. You need, we need to find and we rent the cards or, or you know, how can we do this? And, and they were very excited about it as well. So that's how it came to play. That's crazy. And you know, in my mind, your vision is, it is, it is to show that should be the first ones doing it. And the timing was perfect.

1:06:14 I I as I understood, they looked into doing it at the Sphere in Vegas, but it was just too early in the development. It. Was just too early, Yeah. It was just too early on in the development. That new protocol was not there yet. That is so wild. What a what a cool fit that would be. Yeah, and you know, I'm sure they're going to upgrade at some point, but but but it, it was, that's exactly what Eurasian should be. It should be the frontier of new technology. And that, that's always what drives me doing this show because it's EUR Asian has one thing that most other shows doesn't have. And that's a a good portion of rehearsal we rehearsed for. We are in almost three weeks of full production rehearsals before we go into the first broadcast. So, and, and that's the time you need to be able to, when you introduce new technologies or using existing technologies in a brand new way.

1:07:27 You need at lead time, you need, you need that time to figure shit out. You need to have time at your hands to allow things to get wrong because they they if they can, they most probably wouldn't. Of course, of course. And and that's how we ended up. I mean, we built the first LED floor ever in 2003. Did we patent it? No, we didn't. And that was, am I still upset about that? Yes, I am. Well, I'm not, because when you patent things you tend to slow them down, not speed up the technology or the utilization of it or anything. Millions of dollars mill. Hundreds. Hundreds of dollars. Yeah, I wouldn't be on this call if I had it. I would be in Bahamas drinking Bahama Mama. Hey, sounds fun.

1:08:15 So I have, I have a whole bunch of questions based on some of the stuff you just said. So first of all, most of the time when I'm talking to production people or designers or anyone involved in, in creating shows, it's about the performer. We're just there to augment the, the star, you know, Beyoncé or, or Mick Jagger or whoever it is. Is this the unique example where that's not the case? Where actually the gear and the technology is the performer and and the actual performers and the person winning the contest are secondary? No, actually it's, it's, it is because of the performer that we have this big toolbox.

1:09:05 Because mind you, we need to produce 363841 songs on equal terms and we all have to make them unique and stand out by themselves. And that's the reason for the big creative toolbox that I always provide to my creative team, for them to have a flying chance in hell to actually produce that many unique performances, because that's our job. But. Eurovision is one where people don't, at least most of the people I talk to, which again are very leaning towards our industry. But people talk about the performance of the gear not, not not near as much.

1:09:49 The all that one singer from, you know, Spain was unbelievable or whatever. Like I never remember which country won. Not that it matters to me, but may Nader. I remember what gear was on it, you know? And that that is the that is the problem or the challenge for EUR Asian is that it over the 68 years in existence it has produced. That long A? Very very little amount of superstars. Artist that came out of Eurovision is Cliff Richard ABBA of course. ABBA came out of Eurovision I. Didn't I won Eurovision 1974 so.

1:10:32 I didn't. I had no idea. That's how. They came to fame and I mean it went pretty well for them. No kidding. Yeah. Céline Dion won Eurovision. Well, and since your hockey is so lame, they put Sweden on the map too. Exactly. That's what we're really good at. Yeah, I'm really good at that. Not so good at hockey, but. No. And and it's so funny because that's that is the that is the starting of the Swedish music wonder and and the enormous amount of music export we have. Yeah, in in both performing but also producing like a guy like Max Martin, that is. Think he's the second second most successful songwriter in the world after Sir Paul McCartney. Really.

1:11:23 Yeah. I would have thought it would be like Bernie Taupin or something. Google Max Martin has more. He has more billboard number ones than than most people. That's impassive and. And and what is also amazing is that it's it's. It's an array from from Britney Spears to Kiss to Bon Jovi to Katy Perry to Pink. It's it. Wild. New Kids on the Block It, it's, it's all over the place. It's all over the place. But that back to this whole concept of, of the artist or, or the, the gear, you know, again, like even people I know who are way outside the industry, like there's a guy I know in, in England who's in racing and he loves the pop artists and stuff. And every year he's texting me during Eurovision saying, oh, what was that light?

1:12:14 Oh, what was that light? What's that laser thing? You know, because he knows that I'm in this business, but he's always more excited about, about the show than than the, the singer. And like you said, that's it's a bit problematic because you know, at America's Got Talent, Oregon, American Idol or The Voice or whatever, it's nothing about the gear. Like yes, they're nice looking shows, but it's not about the gear at all. The gear isn't marketed. Yeah, but those those shows can depend on hit songs. Right. Eurovision is all about the original. Music. Yeah, it's 100%.

1:12:54 Original for For more than 100 million of the viewers when they watch Eurovision, that's the first time they hear that song ever and in many cases also the last time. So and that's I mean we have the same we have the same challenge with with America's own contest that is all original songs. So, so even if we put big names like Michael Bolton and and and Jewel and stuff on stage to represent their state, their state, they were doing it by releasing a whole new song that no one had ever heard. And that's always a challenge.

1:13:35 It it's it's that's the tricky part. While idol or X Factor you're well, it's it's covers already that world famous songs. So you don't need, you don't need to Polish that. Term, although that's changing a bit. Like on America's Got Talent in particular, there was a country guy that used to be an Elvis impersonator. He was either last year or the year before, but one of the judges said, I guarantee you that song is going to be #1 on iTunes tomorrow. And it was. And the guy went on to mass. He didn't even win America's Got Talent, I think he finished second or third and stories like that.

1:14:18 And he's gone on to become a massive * sold tons of albums and that kind of thing. But you would think just from the social media exposure that these people are getting and and, you know, but. It's it, it's also changing because 20, let's say 2019, when Holland won, that song actually became a hit worldwide. And it was in movies and it was in commercials even. It's like I, I was, I almost drove off the road when I've heard it on a radio channel in, in, in Austin the first time because I was sure. It's like I never had to listen to that song again because I, I, I, I, I can say it now. I never liked that song and I didn't see what people saw in it.

1:15:07 But then, then, then in Holland, Mona Skin wins. And I mean, Mona Skin is doing that by journey now. They really do. So there is. There's, I think, credibility. Mona Skin. Is that the one with the girl bass player who's always half naked? Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's quite talented. I. Don't mean they still love Madison Square Yard. Have you have? Have you ever heard about the Eurovision winner selling out Madison Square Yard? No, and I didn't know that they were that big either. Yeah, they are. How is it? Pronounced Mona skin when it's spelled Mana skin.

1:15:47 So so because it's actually Danish for moonlight. I did not know that. And because the bass player she's she's Danish. OK. So, so I think that in Danish it's actually an A with a dot on top. So it it creates determinate into an O Yeah, Scandinavians where Scandinavians are wacky. We have three more letters than the rest of you because we made of course, which also means we have three more plans to go to in backup. Oh my God, that's hilarious.

1:16:28 So the next question I had is how are decisions made on gear? Like is that you initially or do you have a whole design team that you're working with right out of the gate? And then you come up with that list or, or is it you sort of on your own cutting deals with the manufacturers and the suppliers and then saying, OK, design team, here's the here's the tool kit you've got to use this year. Yeah, now I so it always starts with a set design. OK, that's the first thing that is chosen. And who does that? The executive team there's we send out the North P and and ask, you know, established set designers, both national and international pitch sending the pitch based on a bunch of, you know, keywords and some practical information that needs to be at least this wide and this deep and as access rampant and such. And do you know the venue at that point? So you could say it needs to fit into this space. Not necessarily often we do.

1:17:40 This year we did but but well actually most often we do, but we actually don't give that though. We don't want to give any restrictions really in in the first because we can always scale it to so it fits once. Once we place the stage, we can scale it so it all fits together with with the infrastructure. Get off topic. Have you, have you ever done a stadium like a football stadium? We've done indoor stadium in 2011 in Dusseldorf.

1:18:22 It was on the table for Sweden this year because we have a huge arena here in here in Stockholm. The problem is that, you know, you have so many more cubic meters of air that you need to fill with lights and sound. And it just turns into the poor, poor business deal because you can sell out as many grand finals as you want, but you won't sell out the semifinals. So actually I saw arena format is perfect for Eurovision because it's, it's big enough to allow plus 10,000 people in the audience and it's small enough to be an environment that you can control when it comes to ventilation.

1:19:07 So, so you know, you make it, you choose the camera lenses to make it big on TV, which is the real audience. I mean everything we do in the arena, every decision we make in pre production is based on the television audience. How big is that television audience? This year was around 160 million. Wow. Oscar 730, Super Bowl has 72. That is wild. That's. Huge. So it it makes it by far the largest entertainment, music entertainment show in the world. That is wild. There's there's nothing, nothing going to it and, and growing and, and then of course you have the whole online streaming, which is really, really, really hard to keep the tab on. So yeah.

1:20:01 Well, 'cause once it goes out there, it just spins into thousands of different places, some of which you know, some you don't. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's crazy. Imagine if 10% of India Watch well. Double your numbers. Yeah, exactly. Back, back to the decisions on gear. So you said it starts with a set. And so once you've chosen a set design. We're we're going to lighting design and it's the lighting designer who who decides he he makes a first list of this is what I want to use. But is that list brand agnostic or brand specific?

1:20:42 Brand specific. So he's saying I want Mac ones and you got to go make a deal with Martin. Is that how that works? If he says that yes, or I mean, there's there's several ways because we there's always compromises, as in any other show, there is there is reality and there's budget and that we need to meet and and it's all finding make the right compromises. This year was easy because Frederick strongly the the lighting designer is actually all over the place when it comes to he likes Roby, he likes Clay Paki, he likes Airton.

1:21:24 He's he's not, he's not religious by to a brand in a sense. Which is cool because you represented almost every major manufacturer on this year's show. GLP Chauvet. Airton Astera, Klaypaki. But what we try to do is like to do the basic rig, the workhorses of the rig coming from the same manufacturer. So all the, all, all their spot instruments and watch instruments and, and, and profiles and whatnot comes from the same manufacturer because it speeds up programming time enormously.

1:22:07 And also, you know, color matching and all that. And when you then all of a sudden that lease becomes quite little because one, one of the one of the big challenges we have right now is going from discharge to LED or laser and going away from traditional follow spots into remote follow spots system where the source is where, where the source is a moving head. And there are not that many moving heads out there powerful or we could see CRI enough to actually work well as a key light on the broadcast.

1:23:00 So there is a gap. Interesting. There is a gap that was created, obviously not on purpose. It's just like technology hasn't really gotten into because now we use Follow Me this year for key lighting and we had sixty key light fixtures, 64 key light fixtures on automation trusses because everything moved, so key light had to move as well. Oh boy. And also for the first time in the history of mankind, Eurovision was in a 360 environment. So we were shooting this show in all directions, which of course also adds to the headache because you know, you can't do television without, without standing key lighting. It it, it just counts.

1:24:01 Well, I'm sure you can and and but but it's it's it that's the by far the most important. Well, yeah, I, I remember every time, you know, every time I was involved with a show and they were gonna shoot a, an HBO special or a television special or a movie or something. You'd have either Bobby Dickinson or, you know, some one of the Bob Barnhart, one of the big television designers would come in with a huge verilite audience package, you know, of, of just a bunch of verilite stuff regardless of what was on stage, you know, just to do the TV shoot. So and you're doing sort of a multi purpose live thing plus ATV shoot all within the same package with with the same design team etcetera.

1:24:49 So it's a little more complicated on that. Yeah, yeah. But you know another question we. We we came to the conclusion that Ayrton was Fred under the circumstances of what we're doing and and Frederick had a very outspoken. I was like, I don't want to see a single discharge bulb in in this ring because I want to do a statement, a statement of the future is here. And also being sustainable because obviously they, they LED or laser dream and lights consume much less power because when you turn them off, they they're off when you're not using them, they they consume.

1:25:33 Of. Course almost nothing. That's one of the biggest changes with LED that a lot of people don't even think of. You know, like at a tour, if you go in at 11:00 in the morning, the lights are on. From then until 11:00 at night, they never turn off. Versus with LED, they're just on whenever you need them on. Right? Exactly. So, and and I mean it does miracles to the pile of dollars that you spend them on these. Can't even imagine the difference. Yeah, Yeah. So you used a bunch of Rivalis on this one too? Yeah. Which I think. Is a great fixture. It's a beautiful. Fixture love it and they're extremely reliable.

1:26:17 And then of course, we had the world premiere of the Ariton Kailami, also known as the Salami or the calamari when Ariton when when Michael Altos showed up. Yeah, venue for the last show week. Yeah, they actually found a T-shirt that said I heart calamari as. A gift for me. That's hilarious. That is so good. Thanks for renaming our lights. That is so good. Well, I mean marketing one O 1 says don't create any product that people struggle to pronounce and Ayrton's destroyed that 100 times in in their product lineup, you know, and hey, God bless him. You know, I I know that I know that Yvonne is a is a huge car junkie and racing junkie and stuff. So it's.

1:27:12 A race track in South Africa. It is, yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So I mean that that was because what you, I, I do believe we had the entire world stock on Eurovision. Wow. Yeah, we had 138. Yeah. Of them and I think that was the world stock. Well, one of the huge advantages you guys have, you being Europeans, is that you can use laser sourced fixtures like over here in the US It's such a pain in the ass with all the the variances and rules and stuff, you know? And especially considering that that go into any movie theater. And there's a laser video.

1:27:57 It's laser. Of course. And you can turn around and look straight at it. You know what's the difference? But yeah, no, it's well. Or or the other thing is, like, there's shows with hundreds of Sharpies on it, and a Sharpie is gonna do more damage to your eyes than a Kayalami is. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. But it's just stupid. It's typical of a government rule. Well, and by the way, those variances, I don't know if you know this, but do you know who controls them? The Food and Drug Administration. I know. Yeah, it's. The FDA, right, The FDA controls laser concert lighting fixtures. Like why? This makes no sense at all. Yeah.

1:28:39 We were bringing it, we were bringing an ice bar to, to the trade show at the McCormick Place in Chicago. This is 1015 years ago. And, and this was for the the Big Tool show. I can't remember what it's called. And it was for a Swedish company and as a part of it was glasses made out of ice from the river up north in Sweden. And they will serve alcohol to guests at the trade show in Chicago. No way you can imagine. You can imagine the paperwork that we had filed for FDA. Chicago was the worst, too. You know what the one thing they said no to was?

1:29:20 Alcohol. Yeah, of course. No, because they want you to buy it from them because they're going to charge you $20.00 for the same thing that you're going to pay $1.00 for. But by serving, serving healthy Americans with with with juice in glasses made of ice from a river up in northern Sweden that actually went through. Similarly, when I was with Martin one time, Peter Johansson sent over a container of Martin beer, a full container of beer. And we, we started to bring it out and somebody from the trade show, I, it was probably Las Vegas or something, I can't remember. But they came over to us and said that goes straight back into that shipping container.

1:30:05 And we're like, what do you mean? This is for our customers. It's free. We're not selling it. They said, I don't care, You can buy beer from us if you want to give it away. And so we tried sneaking it in and they'd see the labels and they'd come back and say, we're going to find you $100,000 and all this stuff. So we just had to give up and buy beer from them. It was crazy. Back, back to. So one of my big questions. Why are you so willing and not even willing, but like, passionate about trying new technology on such a massive show? Because I will tell you, I've worked with a lot of major producers and designers and stuff who are usually taking it pretty safe, like the Grammys.

1:30:48 I want proven technology, the Super Bowl. I want proven technology. You know they don't want to be dealing with failures and stuff, right? And why is it that you're so? Passionate about trying new stuff? That's the beauty with Europe is like you won't have the 200 lawyers chasing your ass if you fuck up. That's true. Yeah, that's true too. Which actually gives you a creative freedom to an extent that you don't have in America because you you always. That is a real danger waiting to happen. But but I also think that I think that the European mentality is, I don't know, we, it's, there's something in our DNA that makes it easier for us to embrace new technology and not and go out of our comfort zone. It's.

1:31:41 Interesting, because I mean, you know, Kailami, for example, like you could have used the mini stelos, for example, you know, and I don't know if it's better or worse or anything. I don't know anything about either one of those. But but you know, it's been out for a year or a year and a half. It's safe. You know, it's going to be good. And I mean, obviously I know when Airton kicks something out the door, it's pretty flawless and, and. You know, we we actually specify those based on some sketches from Airton. Wow. And the tech spec. The the first time Frederick saw the picture was in on the first day of pre programming in his studio. so-called. I saw it a week earlier at pro light and sound and and and it's one of those.

1:32:34 But I mean, we've done this for so many years now on on, I mean, 2002, we built the whole Eurovision on the new funky thing coming out of Austin, TX called Catalyst Beta version one. Brave. There was two. There was three clips in in the library. There was an American flag waving in slow motion in the wind. I remember that one. There was a top shot of the match that was ignited so it was like a fireball. There was a slow MO still image panning appear in Brighton.

1:33:19 Wow. That was it and we realized very late that fact we spend all our money on the servers this this catalyst and mirror heads and reactors free video video clips that we can play and none of them will do it for this show. So we ended up having the the we were in Estonia at the time. So the two it was a married couple, husband and wife making all the content for a stone in television sports that made all video content for Eurovision some contest 2002 and they would after they were done at a stone in television, they went home, they had dinner and then they remained at the kitchen table producing video content halfway through the night.

1:34:10 And every morning on their way to stone television, they would drop off hard drives with new content that was for the specifics. That's wild. And, and it was also this was, you know, in the early days since the the catalyst was DMX control, it by default became a lighting tool. So which also meant that the responsibility for the video content, it was a lighting design to figure out there was no content company back then. You could know that was like, that was just like there were people in basements doing stuff. But, but I mean, and, and I sometimes I pinch myself into arms like, wow, we, we were actually there in the very beginning of so many things like this, this revolution. But, and I mean that's the implemented video, I think is that's the one thing that has had the the biggest impact on everything that we're doing today, because it's just like all of a sudden you needed hundreds of DMX channels just to operate one one server.

1:35:20 So you know, the lighting desks need to perk up and you had the the whole lighting industry going to barkos. Like why are you just making boring panels that are like 4 by 4? We want creative stuff, we want different shapes, we want brighter, we want lighter, more expensive. Why is the projector it's only 3030 thousand? Absolutely. We can't work with that. And it's like need to bump it up to 60 at least. And it's like, and, you know, since I was one of them saying all this, I also know they were absolutely terrified. I was like, what is this? Who are these crazy guys? Yeah. Like can we please go back to do corporate events for doctors? Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah.

1:36:03 So were there any unique challenges this year? Like I know you said everything performed well and all the gear worked great and all of that stuff, but were there any like really unique challenges that were like, oh shit moments? Yeah, yeah, many actually. One, the first one was when we start to realize everything that happens when you move the stage out from the back wall and go into more in center into the arena. Because, you know, where do you find the weakest beams? In beams in any arena?

1:36:44 It's in the center. Yeah, in the center, of course. Yeah, that that, you know, the heavy duty beams are in the back where you usually put your stage. And all of a sudden we had five LED cubes weighing around 3 tons each suspended off the two weakest points. There were two weakest beams in the in the arena. So a lot of super trusts to distribute, distribute the weight away from there. Then we and I mean, we had a rig of 210 tons. We had a hundred and let's see here 100 and we had 199 C one breaking points.

1:37:34 Jesus. So it's it's a new world record with what amount of cyber hoists used in a in a show. So China and your new year show with 150. I say, but, but you know the, the dynamic loads of that adding stress to to that ceiling, which I mean we were already 50 tons heavier than anything that had ever gone into that arena. And then we then we had almost 200 points where it has factor 1.8 because of the dynamics. So you probably had a pretty big engineering crew in there looking at just safety and anything else. Yeah.

1:38:18 We were, we were in, we it's a Finnish company who built the venue. So, so we kept, we kept our engineers very, very busy for many weeks before we finally got a sign off. But while we're doing that and we started to look at the 3D model, we discovered that, well, hang on all all those tech areas that you have traditionally stage right and left, you have automation, you have camera control, you have monitor, you have pyro, all that stuff. All of a sudden those all those positions were center background in all your diagonal shots because you moved the states so far out. So then comes the fun exercise to find the new home for all these people.

1:39:09 It's a lot of people that needs to move to somewhere where they still have a clear sight of what they're operating with in terms of two day cameras and drop cams and you know, yeah, all that stuff. So that I was a major, major undertaking. And then once we came into the arena and start to look at this in camera, you realize that all of a sudden you have a lot of ugly bits and pieces of arena in a lot of shots because, you know, the, the frontal shots were the diagonal shots were more than the frontal shots this year. So, so it was produced in a completely different way than that we that you historically produce ATV show. So, you know, and less blackouts. It depends.

1:40:07 Like there was rolls of black mold on arriving to the to the venue on a daily basis at one point because he was, he was just like, because we saw things in camera that we've never seen before and and it wasn't pretty. So. So that was that was a big challenge, yeah. We thought that it would be very hard for our artists to master this environment. Be in the round you mean? Yeah, because if you think about it, even on a professional level, it takes a special X Factor to perform in the round. There's there's a lot of professional artists that.

1:40:49 Just a struggle. Don't do it well. So we reached out to all the delegations fairly early on in already in December, presenting the stage for them and asking them is like, keep this in mind when you when you start producing your number and in some cases actually when you choose your artist, because some some countries just they just decide, OK, this is the artist that's going to represent us this year. And here's the song off you get while Sweden does it in the most elaborate way. You did. It's a six week tour around Sweden to choose who's going to represent.

1:41:31 Really. Yeah. And and it's actually the most watched show on Swedish television every year, even more than the Donald Duck Christmas special on Christmas Eve. More than the ABBA Easter show or something? Yes, yes. Yeah, more than all of it. More than the hockey Olympics when Canada is beating you again. No, we stopped watching hockey. We we're waiting for the new generation to to show. I understand, I understand. No, I mean, it's wild how big this thing has become. It's just, it's incredible. And it never seems to stop.

1:42:11 Like it just seems to keep getting bigger. And the and The thing is also, you know, I and I take full blame when I'm involved. I I always like, I always want us to achieve those moments. Well, I want my crazies to achieve those moments when the organs go. How the fuck did they do that? Because when you reach to that point, you succeeded because it's pushing borders pushing. And this year we were pushing more than ever, more than ever on every level. And it was so funny when when when the set aside from Florian was was was decided or chosen.

1:43:05 He says like finally. And it's like, what do you mean? Well, I had this idea for years, but I had to save it for Sweden because Sweden would be there in the country and that would be brave enough to do it because we have a long, there is a long Eurovision production history in this. There is a bunch of us that's done. I mean, I've done 16 Eurovisions, four of them in Sweden and 12 of them somewhere else. And there is a, there is a very solid knowledge of how to produce TV, how to make good TV, What is good TV, What is the definition of that? Produce big shows because of our massive and music export and all our big artists, but also the fact that, you know, we this is the third time the Swedish television produced Eurovision since 2013.

1:43:59 Most countries have not in Eurovision has not won three times Even so. So there is we're very relaxed in front of the challenge and it's more like how can we out to what we did last time? That's what drives everyone in the creative team. And it's just for me, it's just to try to to to keep the pace with them. Because the the combo of Florin Vader, Frederick Stormby and our multi camera director, the senior multi camera director Robin Hood founder was it it was turbo speed but but you. Change up. You change up the key people.

1:44:42 Is it every year or like do you have a different lighting? I think you have a different lighting designer every year and. Yeah, there's, you know what I mean, They're all returning at some point. Well, I mean, I've done Eurovision with, let's see here 123457 or 8:00 or 910 different lighting designers. Right. Well, it takes a pretty special person to bring into that environment too, because I mean, not everybody can design A show with a couple thousand moving lights, you know, in and that much just stuff going on like just. And also, you know, how you build a structure around it, how you build?

1:45:28 Yeah. How do you it's all down to how you build your show files and what you name stuff it it it's like it's because it's it's growing. And this year another world record we did this year was obviously the show file. It's 1.2 gigabytes Mama free show file. Our whole system, our MA network was the biggest one ever. It's actually twice as big as the second biggest one, which I should know which one that is, but I don't. And you know, protocol, protocol, protocol for the operators is like don't do this because they were all in the same lighting, was all in the same session, right? So, so you have to be.

1:46:17 If you do, if you hit one wrong button, the whole system goes down. It's like there is there's an incident. Oh yeah, an incident. Excuse me. We need to have a conversation. Yeah, yeah. MA didn't like when we said the system crashed. It was like, no, it this is actually not a system crash. This is just an incident. That's like, OK. OK, well you can call it whatever you want, but fix it please. Shit doesn't work and you know we had 24/7 on site support from MA. Of course. I mean, when you're the biggest system that's ever been used, I mean, obviously they want to have people there.

1:46:57 And we, we all learned a lot, but both them and us, because we were in our unchartered waters and it was like it was so much bigger than anything that had been done before. I assume it was all MA 3, right? Yeah. Yeah. How does the creative process work with regard to the collaboration between your team and the delegate team or delegation team? So like in a festival for example, you have a whole bunch of artists and then you have the main designer for the entire festival. And then if the bigger artists, their designer will get to collaborate with the the main designer and they get to change some things, add a few fixtures, whatever it is. But how does it work with you guys? All, all countries that participate are Co producers to the show simply because they're participating members of the EU European Broadcasting Unit.

1:47:58 So we have to respect their 3 minutes that they own. We really have to respect and listen to them about that. And what we do is like we send out a lot of templates for them to fill in. We want to look and feel document where they write down the song. It was like what is the intro? What is the first verse? What is the first chorus? And you know, support that with images, what they see in terms of mood and lighting and and what not. We allow them to bring their own video content. We allow them to bring their own overlays. But not the lighting director or front house engineer or anything, right?

1:48:45 Yeah, we. It's our show. So we, we do allow them to do live edit scripts and send to the director as suggestions. And we all, we, we only use this as really, really valuable feedback because in many senses they do our job for us. And, you know, our content department maybe has 48 hours to spend on on, on three minutes of music if we are to produce the content, which is a service that we offer for free, but it's, it's limited to 48 hours.

1:49:25 If they produce it themselves, you know, they can spend months on it. So, you know, obviously that would be better. Then again, there is not all countries that are interested or can afford to do that. So, so we offer that service. It's it's on the House. But do you ever have the do you ever have a situation where you know, either an artist or a, you know, a delegate or, you know, a freaking president of a country comes to you and says you fucked up our show and you know it's your fault that we didn't win this year? Like, do you ever have those conversations? It has. It has never happened. In the end, it happens during the journey. Yeah, sometimes.

1:50:13 Yeah. There are some nationalities to choose to express their feelings a bit more violent than others. Yeah. Not, not everyone are as subtle as Scandinavians. Yeah, of course. And it's funny to. It's funny when you realize that we used to be Vikings when we. We're still biking. You still are. I was going to say we, we. We, we, we don't express ourselves that way. You just ride. Volvos instead of sailboats now. Hey, I drive a Dodge Ram America. Yeah, that that apparently that increased my freedom. Yeah, of course it. Does I saw that on a commercial? Yeah, yeah, you're much freer now. And smoke Marlboro, you'll be even more free.

1:50:55 Yeah, so much free, but we have a contest. We have a contest producer and him and his team is in constant contact with the delegations from early January when songs are starting to be selected and there's something to talk about. And they talk about the performance and they talk about, you know, how how to stage it, props, additional lighting, lasers, pyro, all that stuff. Well, I mean. In one sense, how can these people complain? Because they've never stood under a rig like this before in their lives. So like, how could they possibly complain? It's not good enough. And it's it's so funny because in 2016, we had Justin Timberlake as a guest star. Oh wow.

1:51:39 And when he walked in, was he sober? Oh yeah. 'Cause you know, apparently he's got a drinking problem now or something. So. I didn't know that he got busted for. A busted for a DUI like last week or something? Oh shit, that's bad jokes. Yeah, I didn't know that, but but now I know we spend $3000 in flying in diet. What's sugar free? No caffeine free Diet Coke to his pressing room because that's a product that doesn't exist in Sweden. When we it was like, what's the point of not having cuffing? What's wrong with you? Everything. Everything that is supposed to have cuffing in it has cuffing in it. Well, I remember when I used to go to Europe and try to get Diet Coke and they'd say what, you know, we're doing that we have Coke.

1:52:29 And then they started with Coca Light. Coca Light. The funny thing is that the table is turned out because try to go into any restaurant and get a Coke 0. In America you get Diet Coke but not Coke Zero. I see what you're saying. Come on. Yeah, yeah, Coke 0 tastes so much better than Diet Coke. So much better, yeah. So I mean, they're both killing you, but it tastes better, at least while it's. Getting you at least you're enjoying. It Yeah, at least you're enjoying death. It's like a good cigar. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But, but we're, we're very, very active with, with the do's and don'ts of the delegations and, and try to support them and encourage them to do, you know, do stuff outside of the box.

1:53:15 And, and then of course, it comes with a bunch of rules and guidelines of what you can and what you can't do. They're free to to build and bring their own own props. Anything with a cable attached to it comes from us because we don't, we don't allow any alien technology into our system. So if there was extra lights or, or whatever, it comes from our suppliers, not them. So. 'Cause otherwise the suppliers go on. They brought in these light fixtures and that messed everything up. It wasn't our fault. Everybody's pointing fingers this way, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so and also we need to ensure that stuff is good enough.

1:54:00 Of course. Yeah, I, I did one year relation in in Germany where I was the concert producers. I was not part of production. And I think it was Russia that showed up with some homemade LED screens that someone has sorted together in a kitchen in Kiev, Ukraine. And, and it was just the biggest piece of shit one have ever seen on the television screen. And, and I was just like, what is this? Oh, it's like they want to know the difference. Like why aren't we supplying that? Oh, but they said they had really good stuff. Yuck. No thank you. Yeah.

1:54:40 No, thank you. Yeah, well, I mean, you got to control from top to bottom. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to let someone. Die. It's OK to look like an idiot if it's by your own duty. Yeah, right. Someone else. Someone else does it because. It's like. They need to die. They die. One of the last things I really wanted to ask you about the, the something that I really enjoyed this year, I didn't know it existed prior, but I know you, you brag that you're one of the, the, you were a Blogger before blogging was a thing. And so this year I just caught on to your Eurovision diary, I think on Instagram probably. And I really enjoyed it.

1:55:22 Like I loved you were posting video updates. I don't know if it was daily or weekly or whatever, but I really enjoyed that. So how did that all come about? Well, it, it started in 2002 when I decided, because that was my first Eurovision was in Sweden, here in Stockholm, 2000. And in 2002 I took a whole pile of people and we went to Estonia, to Tallinn to produce Eurovision that year. And, you know, Estonia was a brand new country. It was like a couple of years earlier. That was USSR, that one really. I didn't know that Tallinn was actually the closest capital to Stockholm.

1:56:05 It it it's, you know, it's right on the other side of the pond from Stockholm. So it's very close, right. But knew very little about it because it'd been an Iron Curtain for so long. And, you know, I had a big crew and, and I started to do the Diaries. And the reason why I did it was that friends, family, loved ones of my crew could, you know, stay in touch virtually with their loved ones that was away on this big adventure in Estonia. And it was written in Swedish. And it was, you know, every day I took a couple of pictures and and uploaded them on a web page hosted. It was on the I used to work for Spectra then technologies back then, which was lighting rental company. So it was posted on their web page and high end was a partner that year.

1:57:02 We had the catalyst and we had the Xbox. I'm afraid we had yes, yeah, there was definitely. Yeah, there was definitely. Yeah, yeah. Aren't you all. And every time, every time I bring. The biggest light ever, but no output. And every time I mentioned it this in Austin, Richard gives like that was not my fucking feature. It's funny because I had that conversation with Richard, like last week where we were talking. I was trying to get Richard to admit that some of the things that he developed were shit and it's so hard to get him to do. You know it's. Really, really hard to get.

1:57:43 Him to do but you know he he has papers on that when the Xbox was was he was temporarily fired or or on leave from high end when during the Xbox area. So so so yeah but but it was after so in the end of that production Bill Morris reached out to me the former vice president of high end. It's like, hey, we absolutely loved the blog you did, or the diary, because actually blog was not invented. Yeah, it wasn't. Really. the IT wasn't a word.

1:58:25 It's like, And I was like, what? Yeah. But do you think you can do if you ever do it again? Can you do it in English? And I was like, you were reading that. It's like everyone at the office first thing in the morning, they would go to Spectrum web page to, to look. And they were, I mean, better we were just because this was before Google translator. So you were just looking at the pictures and, and just see how it all progressed into what became a very beautiful show. So from 2003 and onwards, it was done in English and it was and it always kept the same heart and soul.

1:59:07 It was all about the crew. Who are the people that is that is doing the show, who are the key people, but also who's the catering lady and whatnot. Because you know, you have to feel confident for like six or seven weeks. So you can go into depth of, but also over time it got more and more diving deeper and deeper into technical specifics because apparently Internet is full of techniques that just loves to know how many screws a Gobo is fixed within a Mac 2000 and other interesting. But it also became a really great promotional tool for our technical partners that was 100% for free. They had logos up there.

2:00:00 We went into depth of the technical innovations we were doing on that specific year. So and then the last one I did was in Tel Aviv 2019. And I knew that would be my last year vision because, hey, I was going to Hollywood. I'm going to be executive producer of American Song Contest. Yeah, yeah, It's funny because I. Had you on I Had You on the podcast in 2019. Little did we know what we were about to bump into. Right. I know, right. And then, then, yeah, well, that's that's temporarily on hold. We think we are super proud of the product that we we gave NBC were maybe not so impressed with the way they handle that product. But I think, I think that that it was it was a really, really, really well produced TV show and it was produced in a way that has never been done on American TV. And it was live and, and that was a really fun discussion with NBC.

2:01:07 It was like when we have live voting. So how can the show not be live? Oh. Yeah, I could see that. But but it was, it was, yeah, I loved everything about that, that that product. We're very proud of it and it's going to come back. Well, timing was. Miserable. I mean, the timing couldn't have been worse, you know? Could be worse. And, and what really what really killed us was that at very late stage, we had to postpone the premier four weeks. So we ended up on the same opening weekend as Idol. And ABC was kind enough to move Idol from Sundays to Mondays to go in direct competition with us. You can never, you can never win that. And that was 100% COVID because we, and it was interesting because we knew we had New York as, as a test lab. Whatever happened in New York, we knew would hit the lake four weeks later.

2:02:09 So, so it was kind of looking into the future and and it was an executive decision made to give us a chance to have some audience in in the studio, which is, you know, super important to the former, of course, live audience. So it was the right decision, but it was also the wrong decision. But, you know, that's learned. Yeah. And and I I learned the hard way that that pandemics is not the the best of times to launch anything new. It's like stick to what you know. It's not easy. It's definitely not unless you were launching like, you know, some online gaming system or something, you know, or a delivery service, you know, or whatever.

2:02:57 But yeah. Or just cashing in on my path and on my OD floor that I never happened but. Right, exactly which would have made you an instant 100 AIR. I'm not here, but when I did it in 2019, I was like, this is and I said I think on the starting page, welcome to the last edition of Eurasian Diary ever. Because it it just took too much time out of the way. And especially that year, because up to that point, from 2007 to 2019, Joan was taking all the pictures and resizing them and publishing them. And then I would write today's story around the pictures. But now I had to take the pictures as well because John wasn't there. So it was, it was just like to be of a burden. So when I came back and, and the SVT, the marketing department really wanted me to do a diary.

2:03:51 And I was like, it's, it's so 2002 to do a diary or a blog. So, but let me I'll do something in the Instagram. So that's how it started and and oh boy, that took off. Fantastic. No, that's fantastic. It's so and it's so easy to do. Like the platforms make it so easy now between YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or any of them, they make it so. Easy. I absolutely love that because, you know, a picture says more than 1000 words in a way, and a video clip says even more. Yeah, you know, there was minimal effort to, to just, oh, this is fun. Oh, I bet people are interested in that. You shoot it, you do some stupid narration to it, and then, then you #Eurovision or, or the manufacturer, whatever. Post Well, it's done.

2:04:43 I'll I'll tell you one of the cool things about this platform that we're recording on right now Riverside. So you can do live stream, you can do all of those same things, but this one does the transcript. As soon as we're done recording, it'll give us a transcript and it'll give us all the timelines of main events that happened during our talk. Like it does all of that stuff automatically. So immediately you have a full transcript of our discussion and. If you managed to log in. Wow, Yeah, you made that a little difficult today. Yeah, well. You know, Swedes, Viking. Site Swedes. Yeah, Swedes. Yeah, it's amazing the amount of technology you use for this show.

2:05:25 But try and come on a podcast, you know, click this button, select A microphone and video. And he kept shutting himself off. And I'm like, what the heck is going on here? Yeah, it was like even after 20 minutes of support call, it was like there was no success. So I download that. No success. Any, any of you, future victims for this kind of interviews, download that. That's the real deal. I will tell you, you're the first person who hasn't been able to make it work on Chrome, so you have some. Special. Settings in your computer. Swedish special forces and security police and all that has been. You're blocking, you're blocking Canada, which is probably a good thing right now, you know, because I'm sitting in. Canada.

2:06:14 So you're you're blocking something on all the Swedish computers because. Yeah. Block Canadian. History with ice hockey yeah, I get it I. Understand. Well, you're trying to steal our secrets, and it's just not that easy because you require skating talent and shooting skills and stuff like that, you know? Yeah. So it's a little bit tougher. It's a little bit tougher. Yeah. Well, my friend, I've taken enough of your time today and I appreciate it so much. It's been fun catching up again. Likewise, it's been lovely, but there is one there is one thing that you promised you would ask me and it was something, I can't remember the exact wording, but a fun memory or some crazy thing that happened.

2:06:56 And I and I, I really, I have something that I think is extremely hilarious and it's it's also a homage to the past because I'm sure you know, do you know the details of the Brown M&M story I do with Van Halen? Yeah. And it was put in there to make sure that the promoter read their was. Reading the agreement, yeah. Yeah, so I every year we write guidelines, show guidelines for and send out to all the delegations. And you know, it's, it's, you know, basic info like the duration of the song, the age of the artist, the amount of performers on stage, deadline for music delivery, content, content delivery, content of the song, no political messages, all that yada, yada.

2:07:52 Also technical, you know, deadlines for delivery, some of stems and LED hunt and whatnot. And the very last paragraph mentions what is not allowed on stage and on this year's show guidelines that was sent. It's I trade them, I send them to EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, and they post them on their intranet where all the delegations download them. The very last, very last segment it says not possible for any delegations to use augmented reality, green screen water or any other liquids, sand, dust or any form of powder, drones, live animals, confetti or clowns.

2:08:52 I love that clowns. And, and, and it actually was only picked up by 1 delegation really. We, we, we were having a creative meeting with the UK who want to do something completely out-of-the-box. Oh, so you allow the UK into Europe? Yeah, well, the the Eurovision Song Contest have contestants from United Kingdom, Israel or Romania, Australia. There's it's a wide definition. Were there any, were there any political like blockages this year like Russia obviously or or? Yeah, Russia.

2:09:35 Russia has been kicked out of the EU. That was that was some fuss about Israel performing or being in the contest. We we never inside the production bubble. We never saw it besides the during the live performance that where there was some quite substantial booing, which is also like, come on, it's a 20 year old beautiful girl performing a beautiful song. She was like, this is not what this show. I mean it's. Different if she's wearing AT shirt that says fuck Palestine or something, you know?

2:10:15 But but she's not like she's not there to make a political statement. She's there to sing a song. Exactly, And it was a great performance. I loved it, absolutely loved it. And she was so talented, so beautiful. And it's just like, but, you know, that's that's the world we're living in today is called haters. And but it's also become like a fashion almost to to to take sides, you know? Yeah, because of social media. The the no clowns thing is hilarious though. Like were you doing it as a joke or were you doing it for the same reason Van Halen did to I did it for? Exactly the same reason as Halen did it. And the only ones who so we had this long traded meeting with the UK about because they, it was a very complicated thing they wanted to do and completely out-of-the-box and something that has never been done on your issue stage before. And, and, and we're like, okay, well, yeah, but you have to here's the, here's the size and the weight of each part of the prop.

2:11:19 And, you know, keep this in mind and blah blah, blah. And, and we actually made an exception the, the video panels that was used in their prop, they delivered by themselves because they had to be built into the prop, but they gave us the full and it was, I actually think it was delivered by CT in the UK. So, so we're OK with that. But in the end of this very long meeting, it's like one of the creative says that darling, oh, I need to ask you something. It's like, I don't plan to bring any, but why aren't the clowns allowed on your stage? Can't I have my clowns?

2:11:59 And I said. Darling, you just want to bottle of champagne because you're the first one that actually noticed that that is, which means which means that you read the entire document. It's like a free page or kind of boring stuff. Rules and protocols. Yeah, La La, La La. Autograph at the. Bottom exactly. Right. Yeah. So that's awesome. Then it turns out that, yeah, sad enough, she was actually the only one coming making that comment. So on the on the first day of of on the 1st rehearsal for UK, that was a nice bottle of champagne served in front of the stage to to that producer. It's like you won.

2:12:40 You're awesome. So I know I said I was done, but when do you start next year, next year on vision? Well. Who says I'm doing next year? I don't know, but let's assume you're doing next year. When? When would you start? Two weeks ago. But since I'm not appointed yet, I'm. I'm doing something else. Yeah, I just got involved with something extremely exciting. It's going to be yeah, it's going to be yeah, wow. It's it's going to make Eurovision look like a small club gig, yeah. I assume you can't say much more. No, I, I, I'm no, in a couple of weeks I, I can tell you more and you will go holy shit.

2:13:33 Wow, I can't wait to hear that than the biggest ever. So there's reasons to now when I have the app, I'm, you know, it's easy for us to connect. Yeah, we're going to have to talk about it again. Yeah, now I'm, I'm super busy with that, with a great team of of people. There was something that just dropped in our lap a week ago. Yeah, wow. A week and a half ago super cool so and it's going to happen later this year so it's it's. Nice. Well, I look forward to hearing about it, but quit talking about it now because now you're pissing me off because you won't tell me. But I can give you my recipe of a of a good rub for for brisket.

2:14:14 You go on. Tell me, yeah, like, I guess you've learned a lot about BBQ since you got to Austin, right? I did. I did and and so. Do you have your own smoker and all that stuff? Yeah, I'm a pellet smoker guy. I don't have time to get up at 3:00 AM and set fire to some wood and then sit there and watch it among spiders and snakes and crap all day. It's like, so I use, I use Green Mountain Grill pellet smoker, I guess $5 every time I say that. And it's awesome and it's all and I control it from my phone and it's not even at our place. It's it's at my mother is in law's place down in Lakeway, so.

2:14:57 Wow, so. Yeah, it's officially a a Christmas gift to her. She has never used it. She doesn't know how. She doesn't even know how to start it. That was, you know, but it was a good excuse to get one. See, I, for me, barbecuing is, I've got a nice, you know, stainless steel or whatever, aluminum, I don't know what it is, but it's a gas BBQ that I throw a steak on there. I cook it and you know, I, I, I'm, I'm sure you know Brian Dowd. Oh yeah, of course. You know, so he just did the the four wall thing again in New Jersey. Yeah, I think last. Week, yeah, I mean, that guy, he cooks so much food. It's just an enormous amount of food that he cooks over a couple of days for that thing, so.

2:15:41 We we always do a a crew barbecue in Eurasia and that was a tradition that started already in 2000. Two Oh wow and the. Problem is always there's always two major problems. One, to find the time to do it, and two. Aren't all Europeans vegans? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just. Joking. No. No. They're all in Austin. That's funny. Los Angeles. The the the second, second big challenge is to get the fire Marshall to sign up for the open flames somewhere, anywhere in within the security compound. So this year we have like a winter garden outside. We, we were using the, the whole conference floor at the hotel as our production office area and they had like two lovely outdoor Winter Gardens and we got a sponsorship from, from Traeger.

2:16:34 So we got their biggest smoker. And then so, you know, day one we were all the Traeger in winter Garden and the Hostess of the conference was like, what are you doing? Like, we're not sure yet, but I'm going to figure this out. And that is awesome. We had the venue, the the arena restaurant in arcade ring and and they were it was such a train crash in 2013 that asked me for meeting already in January. It's like, how can we make this successful? So I said it's so simple, you know, Taco Friday, everyone loves tacos, dude, can we do can we do some other on buffet on on Saturdays?

2:17:16 And they said what about BBQ buffet? It was like, yeah, let's do that now we have a hamburger buffet on Sundays and mixing up with a lot of Asian food, you know, Italian food, because that's really what it's all about. Good catering comes with great variation, especially in on A7 week hall. This is like you need to make things up. And then then when we're on site, I was like, I think it was Wednesday and I wasn't catering and I was like, and the chefs were up there and said, hey, so tell me a bit more about this BBQ buffet you're planning to do on on Saturday. What is it going to be?

2:18:01 I was like, well, you know, if we're doing flank and we're doing some sausages and stuff, and then we'll think about one more thing and it's like, well, why don't you order like 8090 lbs of pork and we'll take care of that. I was like, what do you mean? Oh, come with me. So I took them down in the winter yard and I said I was like the Rolls Royce and Bella Grill Center was like, what is this? It's like, that's our production smoker. Can we can we do one of the dishes every Saturday? It was like, hell yeah. And since we ordered the the meal, the meat from them, that was all the paper trails and then everything was prepped in their kitchen. So we just send them a list of.

2:18:52 This is what we need for this rub. Or. This, it was amazing. So every Saturday or every, every Friday or, or actually when Wednesday or Thursday, we were prepping the meat, doing the the rub, letting you sit in their walk in refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours, putting it on a smoker on Friday so it'll be ready by 6:00 PM on Saturdays. You're making me hungry, man, You're making me hungry. It was the best stunt ever. It was like finally we could do crew BBQ, we could do it every Saturday and it was actually part of the catering and they were served up in the country. So, so they just did all the sides and they, you know, they would do the slaw and and and corn and whatnot and it was awesome.

2:19:42 Oh, we lost your sound here. Oh, all right, Ola. Thank you. Be well, my friend. All right, the.