In common with most big festivals and events, last year’s Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – but because two years without the gaudy musical spectacular are unconscionable, organisers are moving ahead with preparations for this year’s event.
So that’s definite is it?
Despite the cancellation of last year’s event the intention of the organisers always has been to hold the 2021 contest, and to hold it in Rotterdam, which should have hosted the 2020 competition following Holland’s victory in Tel Aviv in 2019. The winning song was Arcade by Duncan Laurence. You know the one: “Small-town boy in a big arcade/I got addicted to a losing game/Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh”. So it was always a safe bet that the contest would go ahead in some form. However we have now had confirmation from none other than the voice of Eurovision himself, Graham Norton. “There’s definitely going to be a Eurovision,” he said in a recent interview with an American radio station. “The competition element is going to happen.” He also said that if contestants are unable to physically be in Holland due to travel bans in their respective countries, they will be able to “Zoom in a performance”, a reference to the popular video conferencing platform.
The Eurovision Zoom Contest, then?
Not quite. The organisers have responded by noting that while Norton was correct in saying the competition would go ahead – the confirmed date for the final is May 22: circle it in your calendar and book your space on the sofa – those acts unable to travel to Holland will pre-record their turns rather than perform over a glitchy internet connection which could see them freeze mid-song. It’s hard to emote when you know your wi-fi might drop out any second and, sympathetic to that, the organisers expect national broadcasters to step up and film the performances, though they will have to do so according to a strict set of guidelines. They don’t want anybody having an unfair advantage.
So where will the contest take place?
Those contestants who are able to travel to Holland will be strutting their stuff on the stage of the cutely-named Rotterdam Ahoy, a 16,000 capacity convention centre and arena dating from 1950. It is most often used for elite sports such as athletics, gymnastics, judo – as well as darts, if it counts as an elite sport – but it has also hosted music events such as the 2007 Junior Eurovision Song Contest and the 2016 MTV Europe Music Awards. In honour of Duncan Laurance, who happens to be a local boy despite the name, the door by which participants enter has been renamed Door Duncan.
Will it feature last year’s songs?
It will not. Some disappointed artists who had been due to take part in the cancelled 2020 event did lobby for the 2021 competition to use the same songs but the organisers have decided that fresh batch will be invited.
And will there be fans?
“I doubt we’ll be in a stadium full of 20,000 people,” Graham Norton said in the same interview. But the true answer to that, as with so much else, is unknowable.
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