Hello Everybody,
I am sure you are all probably aware of the fact that this year the UK will host the Eurovision music contest but I am a massive fan (printing contestants cards and vote with friends in front of pizza and drinks type of fan ) and I know that there are a lot of side events not many people know about, so I thought it would be nice to do a quick write up with a summary of info that could be useful if you want to go an experience the event in some capacity, even without a ticket.
What Is Eurovision?
The Eurovision is an international music contest organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring artists representing primarily European countries.
Each participating artist needs to submit an original song to be performed live and on radio with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner.
Based on the Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy since 1951, Eurovision has been held annually since 1956, aside from 2020 due to Covid, making it the longest-running annual international televised music competition and one of the world's longest-running television programmes.
The winner's nationality will determine the country that will host the contest the following year.
Where Will Eurovision 2023 Be Held?
This year it is a pretty special one for the UK as the country will be the host of the 2023 Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine, winner of the 2022 edition.
The competition is made up of two semi-finals and the grand final - all of which will be broadcast live.
This year's semi-finals will take place on Tuesday 9th of May and Thursday 11th of May, with ten countries from each show going through to the final.
The hosting city is Liverpool and the show's final will take place at the M&S Bank Arena on the waterfront on Saturday 13th May.
This Year's Motto and Presentation Video
United by Music
Participating Countries And UK Representative:
There are 26 spots in the final this year with UK, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine and Germany already there with a guaranteed spot.
The other 20 will be drafted out of 31 competing nations in the two semi-finals:
The UK representative for 2023 is Mae Muller with her track "I Wrote A Song" - first female artists to represent the United Kingdom in 5 years.
Like Sam Ryder last year, she is quite present on social media and found a lot of exposure there for her music releasing her debut single "Close" in 2018; and scoring a minor hit in 2021 with "Better Days".
She has been in the industry for quite some time despite her young age, she's already been nominated for an MTV Award, and worked with stars including Little Mix and Marshmello.
Tickets & Side-Events
As you can imagine the tickets are sold out (they went on sale in March and disappeared in a matter of minutes) but it is still possible to get some on reselling prices on Ticketmaster. Having a quick look at it, the price range seems to go from £190, £210 up to a hefty £45000 for a 12 people's package in the final.
Even if you won't be able to watch the show from inside the arena, there are loads of side events and concerts happening during those few days that are still worth a visit, especially because you can then watch the show at one of the scheduled screening around town.
Here's some useful links to find activities and shoes around the main contest:
Why Is UK Hosting The 2023 Eurovision?
As I mentioned earlier, normally, the winning country hosts the following year's competition.
Last year Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 Eurovision song contest with their song "Stefania" but the ongoing war situation makes it impossible to proceed with the usual schedule.
The EBU decided to offer to the UK the possibility to host on Ukraines' behalf, because Sam Ryder was the runner up of last year's edition.
*It will be the ninth time the UK has hosted the competition, and the fifth time it has done so on behalf of another country.
** Last time the UK won Eurovision was in 1997
Where Can We Watch It?
In the UK, Eurovision will be broadcast live on BBC One.
The BBC's coverage will be hosted by Graham Norton, Hannah Waddingham, Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina.
A couple of details worth mentioning:
In addition to the live shows and normal tv coverage, a special fan zone will be built to hold up to 25000 people at Liverpool's Pier Head close to the arena for a show screening.
Among Events planned there will be a submarine parade through the city and a rave party which will take place simultaneously in Liverpool and Kyiv.
How Does Voting Work and How We Decide A Winner?
The semi finals voting is pretty straight forward: artists perform their song and the results are decided by a public vote.
The final's voting is a little bit more complicated as involved a jury's participation:
Each of the 26 countries has a jury whose members rank all the final performances.
They award a fixed number of points to their top 10 acts: Respectively 12 points, 10 points, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one.
The jury results are announced by each country in turn on the night.
Competing countries then award points to the other contestants based on viewer votes, following the same scoring system.
For the first time, in 2023 public votes from outside Europe will play a part. Worldwide votes will be combined and counted as if they are another country.
Event Cost and Controversies
As we all know the UK is going through a very difficult phase with cost of living crisis affecting most of the population.
Events like the Eurovision are obviously very expensive and not everybody is satisfied with the justification that invested capital will be recovered thanks of of tourism influx, hospitality income generation and merchandise sale.
Every country that takes part in the contest pays a fee to the EBU plus the BBC makes a contribution which is not public in terms of value.
There have been some controversies regarding the fact that because of the expulsion of Russia (due to the Ukraine's invasion) entry fees have been raised to make up for the loss and not every country was happy with that (Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro decided to pull out).
Also, another detail to take in consideration is that BBC will spend between £8m and £17m to organise and host this big machine, but there is a general worrying about the cost of transportation from technical equipment now that because of Brexit the UK is not part of the EU.
A Couple Of Questions For You:
A Few Useful Resources:
I am sure you are all probably aware of the fact that this year the UK will host the Eurovision music contest but I am a massive fan (printing contestants cards and vote with friends in front of pizza and drinks type of fan ) and I know that there are a lot of side events not many people know about, so I thought it would be nice to do a quick write up with a summary of info that could be useful if you want to go an experience the event in some capacity, even without a ticket.
What Is Eurovision?
The Eurovision is an international music contest organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring artists representing primarily European countries.
Each participating artist needs to submit an original song to be performed live and on radio with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner.
Based on the Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy since 1951, Eurovision has been held annually since 1956, aside from 2020 due to Covid, making it the longest-running annual international televised music competition and one of the world's longest-running television programmes.
The winner's nationality will determine the country that will host the contest the following year.
Where Will Eurovision 2023 Be Held?
This year it is a pretty special one for the UK as the country will be the host of the 2023 Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine, winner of the 2022 edition.
The competition is made up of two semi-finals and the grand final - all of which will be broadcast live.
This year's semi-finals will take place on Tuesday 9th of May and Thursday 11th of May, with ten countries from each show going through to the final.
The hosting city is Liverpool and the show's final will take place at the M&S Bank Arena on the waterfront on Saturday 13th May.
This Year's Motto and Presentation Video
United by Music
Participating Countries And UK Representative:
There are 26 spots in the final this year with UK, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine and Germany already there with a guaranteed spot.
The other 20 will be drafted out of 31 competing nations in the two semi-finals:
The UK representative for 2023 is Mae Muller with her track "I Wrote A Song" - first female artists to represent the United Kingdom in 5 years.
Like Sam Ryder last year, she is quite present on social media and found a lot of exposure there for her music releasing her debut single "Close" in 2018; and scoring a minor hit in 2021 with "Better Days".
She has been in the industry for quite some time despite her young age, she's already been nominated for an MTV Award, and worked with stars including Little Mix and Marshmello.
Tickets & Side-Events
As you can imagine the tickets are sold out (they went on sale in March and disappeared in a matter of minutes) but it is still possible to get some on reselling prices on Ticketmaster. Having a quick look at it, the price range seems to go from £190, £210 up to a hefty £45000 for a 12 people's package in the final.
Even if you won't be able to watch the show from inside the arena, there are loads of side events and concerts happening during those few days that are still worth a visit, especially because you can then watch the show at one of the scheduled screening around town.
Here's some useful links to find activities and shoes around the main contest:
- Eurofestival
- Eurovision Village
- Opening Party With National Lottery
- Eurovision Extravaganza at St.George's Hall
Why Is UK Hosting The 2023 Eurovision?
As I mentioned earlier, normally, the winning country hosts the following year's competition.
Last year Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra won the 2022 Eurovision song contest with their song "Stefania" but the ongoing war situation makes it impossible to proceed with the usual schedule.
The EBU decided to offer to the UK the possibility to host on Ukraines' behalf, because Sam Ryder was the runner up of last year's edition.
*It will be the ninth time the UK has hosted the competition, and the fifth time it has done so on behalf of another country.
** Last time the UK won Eurovision was in 1997
Where Can We Watch It?
In the UK, Eurovision will be broadcast live on BBC One.
The BBC's coverage will be hosted by Graham Norton, Hannah Waddingham, Alesha Dixon and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina.
A couple of details worth mentioning:
In addition to the live shows and normal tv coverage, a special fan zone will be built to hold up to 25000 people at Liverpool's Pier Head close to the arena for a show screening.
Among Events planned there will be a submarine parade through the city and a rave party which will take place simultaneously in Liverpool and Kyiv.
How Does Voting Work and How We Decide A Winner?
The semi finals voting is pretty straight forward: artists perform their song and the results are decided by a public vote.
The final's voting is a little bit more complicated as involved a jury's participation:
Each of the 26 countries has a jury whose members rank all the final performances.
They award a fixed number of points to their top 10 acts: Respectively 12 points, 10 points, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and one.
The jury results are announced by each country in turn on the night.
Competing countries then award points to the other contestants based on viewer votes, following the same scoring system.
For the first time, in 2023 public votes from outside Europe will play a part. Worldwide votes will be combined and counted as if they are another country.
Event Cost and Controversies
As we all know the UK is going through a very difficult phase with cost of living crisis affecting most of the population.
Events like the Eurovision are obviously very expensive and not everybody is satisfied with the justification that invested capital will be recovered thanks of of tourism influx, hospitality income generation and merchandise sale.
Every country that takes part in the contest pays a fee to the EBU plus the BBC makes a contribution which is not public in terms of value.
There have been some controversies regarding the fact that because of the expulsion of Russia (due to the Ukraine's invasion) entry fees have been raised to make up for the loss and not every country was happy with that (Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro decided to pull out).
Also, another detail to take in consideration is that BBC will spend between £8m and £17m to organise and host this big machine, but there is a general worrying about the cost of transportation from technical equipment now that because of Brexit the UK is not part of the EU.
A Couple Of Questions For You:
- Will you watch the event? Will you actually attend?
- What do you think about the investment that the country made to host this huge event?
A Few Useful Resources:
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102 Comments
sorted byFrance 2nd in 2021 bottom 2022 4th favourites this year
Spain poor 2017 to 2021 3rd 2022 5th favourites this year
Finland bottom 2018 2021 2nd favourites this year
UK bottom 2019 2021 2nd 2022
Israel won it 2018 poor 2017 2019 dnq 2022 7th favourites this year
Switzerland dnq 2018 3rd-4th 2019 2021
Austria dnq 2021 2022 8th favourites this year
Russia 3rd 2016 2019 dnq in between
Cyprus poor 2015 to 2017 nearly won it 2018 dnq last year
Netherlands Austria Portugal Germany won it -without any so-called allies/neighbours-, bottom shortly before or after
Denmark Greece Finland also won it then not qualified several times
The amount of points needed to be in contention (several hundred) render one or even two or three dozen "political" points immaterial.
Yes it's expensive, and only for the die hard Eurovision fans out there.. but then when was the last time Eurovision came to the UK...
See you in the stadium at the final 👌 (edited)
Abba did quite well though having the talent to compose and play real Instruments in one take.
3 minute - Is that bad? I think it's great
Pop Songs - Again if you don't like pop it doesn't follow others (millions in this case) don't, generally or just as an one-off. The genre/style is chosen with popularity in mind, maybe they should only sing what you or the uk likes?
sung Karoke - Uniquely this is a "song" contest (composition production etc) not a "singing" contest, the live performance is only a small part. Also having live instruments as it used to be would be impractical or biased or simply worse. (edited)
I am in. AirBNB sublet.
Band in quesiton with "Electric Callboy" And Hypa Hypa was the song they tried to enter with, saw them live on Monday and they were great!
Yes too political and too whatever but if you guys are close like me, idk the problem by going, go_A play free, same as Jamala, are good as musicians themselves, don't come with the "iN mY tImES" I studied music and I don't listen to "commercial trendy music" at all, but let's have some respect and at least enjoy the free events everywhere around the city, life is too dark itself so no need to be too edgy
merseytravel.gov.uk/cus…ce/
COLD
How much is the Charles due costing us ? 180,000 Police.
So much wrong with it and shop lifting is on the rise. Lady in Farm Foods said that the corrupt Police don't even bother to turn up.
Op thanks for taking the time and effort to put this together!
heroyam slava
If she wins Muller yogurt need to do a sponsorship deal with her and if she loses well she can get mullered at the bar
Cha cha cha chaaaaa