Disguise has partnered with Creative Technology (CT) to deliver the visual playback infrastructure for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, supporting one of the world’s most complex and high-profile live broadcast productions. The 70th edition of the event will take place in Vienna on 16th May, with semi-finals on 12th and 14th May, bringing together audiences from across the globe for another spectacular showcase of music and live production innovation.
Returning for the eighth consecutive year, Disguise and Creative Technology continue their collaboration on one of Europe’s largest live broadcast events. Building on the success of previous contests, Disguise’s GX 3 media servers are being deployed to power this year’s visuals, delivering high-performance playback and supporting the production’s shift toward a more LED-driven stage design, while also optimising workflows for IP-VFC. The setup has been carefully designed to support the scale and flexibility required for Eurovision’s dynamic staging and fast-paced broadcast environment.
In parallel with the hardware deployment, Disguise has worked closely with Creative Technology to refine IP-VFC performance and workflows for large-scale broadcast environments. Eurovision 2026 will also be one of the first major live broadcast productions to deploy the latest IP-VFC firmware update, marking an important milestone for Disguise’s ST 2110 workflow technology. Built for the demands of complex live productions, the new IP-VFC release delivers significant stability and performance enhancements for GX 3 servers, helping support resilient, low-latency video distribution across Eurovision’s expansive LED and broadcast infrastructure.
As one of the world’s most technically demanding live events, Eurovision provides a powerful real-world showcase for the next evolution of Disguise’s IP-based broadcast workflows. To support the production on-site, Disguise engineers have also worked alongside Creative Technology’s team throughout rehearsals and live broadcasts, ensuring seamless integration and rapid response in a high-pressure live environment. “Eurovision always succeeds in raising the bar creatively and technically,” comments Niklas Ljung, Group Technical Director at Creative Technology. “This year, the scale and flexibility of the LED environment is a key part of that ambition. Working with Disguise, we’ve been able to refine our workflows and build a system that supports both the creative vision and the reliability demands of a live broadcast of this magnitude.”
With more than 35 broadcasters expected to cover the event and a global audience that regularly exceeds 160 million viewers, Eurovision remains as much a showcase for broadcast technology as it is a celebration of music. Partners including Megapixel, providing video processing solutions, and ROE Visual, supplying the LED displays, play a key role in powering the technical infrastructure behind this year’s show. “The Eurovision Song Contest continues to set the benchmark for innovation in live entertainment, and is an incredibly exciting early showcase of our latest IP-VFC technology in a demanding broadcast environment,” says Camilla Powell, Head of Product at Disguise. “Through our continued partnership with Creative Technology, we’re proud to support one of the most ambitious live productions in the world.”
