As the official audio supplier to the host broadcaster ORF for the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) 2026, Sennheiser deployed its biggest Spectera set-up to date at Vienna’s Stadthalle, including manufacturing samples of the yet to be launched Spectera handheld transmitter. A total of four active Base Stations handled about 150 live streams for wireless mics, in-ear monitoring and control data in what is widely judged to have been the best live sound for the ESC ever, created by technical production company Agorà. Sennheiser’s technical application engineering (TAE) team, headed by Jonas Næsby and Volker Schmitt, were on site to provide support with the wideband system and the new workflows it permits.
ORF had turned the Vienna Stadthalle, and in fact the whole city, into a truly spectacular venue for the ESC and its huge fan community. The excitement in the area was tangible, as it was with the technical suppliers. As Volker Schmitt noted, “The anticipation was constantly rising, especially as the 70th Eurovision Song Contest promised to be one of the most technically ambitious productions. In addition to the live television magic and creativity the ESC radiates, its scale and complexity have always been an invitation to the industry to bring – and often unveil –their latest and greatest technology. That does not just refer to us bringing Spectera to Vienna, but also to video, lighting, the laser crew, you name it.” Valerio Motta, ESC project lead at Agorà, said: “Eurovision is a fast-paced, dynamic, and highly demanding production. Everything feels calm as long as everything works, and having Sennheiser involved in such a delicate project made the entire audio team feel supported and confident. We all knew that even if any issues had come up, which they didn’t, the manufacturer’s support would have been there to help resolve them in the best possible way.”
For the ESC, ORF with Head of Sound Gerhard Jansa and Agorà with project lead Valerio Motta turned the Vienna Stadthalle into a full-energy spectacle of lights, laser beams and sound (Photo credit: ORF) “I believe there was a unique combination of factors that contributed to the result: excellent sound coming from the PA system, great signal flow management, and outstanding audio quality in the artists’ ears,” continued Motta. “Not receiving a single complaint from any artist is a strong validation of the listening experience they had throughout the event. Using Spectera during such a demanding production environment and integrating it into a workflow of this scale was interesting not only from a technical perspective but also in terms of operational flexibility and signal management. In a production where reliability and speed are essential, having tools that simplify complexity can make a real difference.” PRESS RELEASE 3/12 In the Sound Room On the right: Valerio Motta, ESC project lead at Agorà (Photo credit: ORF) Behind the scenes, technical crews, artists, and broadcasters had been working tirelessly for weeks to fine-tune every detail of the spectacular shows. The Stadthalle’s sound room, led by Head of Sound Gerhard Jansa, handled mic audio, IEM audio, artist audio preparation, and audio distribution to the OB vans. Failsafe operation was key for the entire event; for example, the sound room accommodated two independent mixing desks with an operator each. Failsafe operation was key at the ESC – one of two independent monitor consoles The same idea of failsafe reliability was behind the six Spectera Base Stations that were used – while four were active for audio and control data, working on one RF channel each, another one was exclusively dedicated to scanning the spectrum 24/7, but could also run as a spare as it was already linked with all antennas. A sixth Base Station was a true spare unit. Six rack-mounted Spectera Base Station were on duty in the sound room, four were active, one used for scanning, No. 6 was a spare “The requirement of ORF was nicely simple and short: ‘We need coverage in the entire venue.’,” recalled Schmitt. “We started out with two Spectera DAD antennas at stage right and green room left for each Base Station, and that gave us full transmit and receive power for the hall. For extra reliability, we then added another two antennas per Base Station. Also, a firmware variant especially for the event had given us a preview of upcoming functionalities that were needed on site, such as a level recorder.”
An RF control centre in the sound room continuously provided a full overview of the current status of the Spectera wireless microphones and in-ears using Spectera WebUI and the Sonoros app. The RF control centre in the sound room: Spectera WebUI on the middle screen, the Sonoros app on the right-hand screen, logging the data and recording audio for every device Jonas Næsby pointed out the simplicity that Spectera provided for cabling the arena: “We used a fibre run from the sound room to FOH, converting back to copper using standard IT media converters. This meant that we got the full performance of the remote antennas, and not the usual compromise presented by RF-over-fibre systems used with conventional wireless.” Spectera DAD antennas were also mounted behind the stage to ensure perfect coverage when the artists would enter the stage from behind the video wall. Rotation makes the wireless world go round Antenna set-up behind the stage for testing
The songs presented at ESC are three minutes long, and just as the many stagehands who were working so swiftly outside the camera angles, the audio team only had 42 seconds to change over to the next act. With six people maximum on stage per act, the team provided a mic rotation of six Spectera handhelds, an in-ear rotation of six Spectera SEK bodypacks working as in-ears only, and an ‘all-in’ rotation of six Spectera bodypacks with headsets mics and in-ear monitors. “For the artists who opted for a hands-free solution, we used the bidirectional Spectera bodypack with a cardioid Headmic 4. This mic contributed prominently to the overall sound quality, performing extremely well in front of the PA and wind machines. For those who preferred a Spectera handheld mic, we had brought the soon to be released Neumann KK 105 A capsules. This is a super-cardioid model to get less pick-up from adjacent sound sources and the room.” Highlighting the dimensions of the show, Næsby pointed out that “No other TV production builds in more redundancy than the Eurovision Song Contest. Almost the entire set-up has a full backup system ready to take over. Really, the only two things, where a dual set-up doesn’t work, are the artist, and the microphone in their hand, making it the single most important piece of equipment in the signal chain. The Spectera handheld SKM quickly proved to be the perfect solution. The unmatched RF stability of wideband transmission, combined with multi antenna capabilities instantly provided confidence to the production that ORF had made the right choice of bringing these pre-production samples to a show of this calibre.”
Spectera bodypacks and handhelds ready for the next act Amidst their work at the Stadthalle, the crews in the sound room still found the time to give something back: From load-in to the grand finale, donations were collected for St. Anna Children’s Hospital in Vienna, with Sennheiser matching the contributions. ORF and the EBU also invited 16 young patients and their parents to a special backstage visit with tour guide Victoria, where they met Austrian performer Cosmo and Cyprus entrant Antigoni, while collecting autographs and selfies from other artists along the way. “Spectera made life easier for everybody,” continued Schmitt. “For the talent, who were impressed by its fantastically clear, spatial in-ear sound and who had just one bodypack to hide in their costumes when using a headset mic. For the dressing/undressing team, who were happy that there was just one bodypack to fit into the costume, and last but not least for us, as Spectera is providing us with essential health data.” Schmitt goes on to cite a more complex example with an act that changed the stage costume three times – in an environment where inconsistency can introduce errors. “In the past, we didn’t have any feedback from the device about how it fared with the newly chosen costume, which in this case was studded with metal elements, making us wireless experts extra nervous. With Spectera, we could immediately see when RF health deteriorated and take counteraction, before the artists even noticed that something was not OK.
“Overall, Spectera earned praise from engineers, production teams and delegations alike for its crystal-clear audio, flawless wireless performance and exceptional RF stability in what is one of the most demanding and most celebrated live music broadcasts in the world,” Schmitt concluded. ESC winner DARA performed with a Headmic 4, which gave her the necessary freedom of movement for her spectacular choreography. “You can actually say that the ESC was the birth of Spectera, because it was there and then that we decided to address the fading issues from a totally new angle. With standard wireless, you can set up more antennas, but that does not solve the underlying problem: the fading notches and cancellations. We wanted to eliminate those at the root.” Georgi added: “And so we started out with the development of wideband technology for professional audio. Working with a broadband channel of 8 MHz, which is not prone to those fading notches, was the beginning. As bandwidth must not be wasted, this required multiplexing microphones differently, which again led us to the idea of time slots, and so the ball got rolling.
