Eurovision Song Contest, 2023

[Chrill]

I truly hope from this Eurovision, I haven't heard the last of either Käärijä, or Gustaph. I'll be keeping my ears open for anything they put out onwards, they're the two standouts for me from this year.

I will be looking out for Lord of the Lost and Voyager personally. LotL especially is already a semi-established metal act in Europe, in fact they are playing in Stockholm on June 1st and maybe I should attend. If only to hear them cover Cha Cha Cha.

Lord of the Lost - Cha Cha Cha
https://open.spotify.com/track/6WnS3E5P ... 2cd1b5472c

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LotL especially is already a semi-established metal act in Europe

My girlfriend was pretty gutted they did so poorly, they're apparently guite big in the goth subculture she used to be in, although apparently they don't watch Eurovision I guess?

Full points & placements for the semi finals have been released.
Semi-Final 1 was won vote-wise by Finland with 177 points, followed by Sweden (135), Israel (127), Czechia (110) & Moldova (109).
Semi-Final 2 was won vote-wise by Australia with 149 points, followed by Austria (137), Poland (124), Lithuania (110) & Slovenia (103).
Don't forget that this time around, juries did not vote in the semi-finals, only televotes.

So who didn't get through SF1? We already know, but now we have points. In order of 11th to 15th, Latvia (34 points), Ireland (10), Netherlands (7), Azerbaijan (4) & Malta (3).
The same but for SF2, 11th to 16th, and we have 2 0 pointers here! Iceland (44), Georgia (33), Greece (14), Denmark (6), Romania & San Marino tied 15th, both with 0 points.

Interestingly for SF2 there was a clear divide by qualifiers (1-10) and those who didn't (11 to 16) with 30 points between Estonia & Iceland, whereas in SF1, Serbia narrowly got through over Latvia, with just 3 points between them, 37 & 34 respectively.

I am sad that Austria & Australia didn't receive the same support in the final, as they did in SF2. Clearly the audience thought whilst they were really good in SF2, either their performance tanked for the final, or it provided a much tougher field that they couldn't compete with compared. I'm also pretty gutted that Romania scored a whopping 0 points, apparently it didn't grow on others as it had grown on me.
Worth noting that with Loreen's win, Sweden are now tying Ireland for the most victories with 7 each, and Loreen became only the second singer to win the tournament twice. Lucky for Sweden, I doubt Ireland are in with a chance of winning any time soon, based off the last 10 years, so the most wins is their's for the taking!

Eurovision.tv sources: SF1 & SF2, or amalgamated on Wikipedia here.

[Chrill]

Worth noting that with Loreen's win, Sweden are now tying Ireland for the most victories with 7 each, and Loreen became only the second singer to win the tournament twice. Lucky for Sweden, I doubt Ireland are in with a chance of winning any time soon, based off the last 10 years, so the most wins is their's for the taking!

With the amount of hate Sweden is getting over this win, and already being whispers of Sweden "always winning" after our two victories in the mid-2010s, I doubt we will secure victory again for at least 10 years. We are victims of our own success, the only country with 3 wins in the last 15 years and only the 2nd country after Ukraine with 3 wins this side of the year 2000 (and we also won twice in the 90s).

Finland was entertainment, but to me Loreen was clearly the stronger musician and performer. The juries will look for that more than just 3 minutes of fun, which is why Finland suffered slightly in the jury vote. And let us not forget Sweden did not flop with people, coming in 2nd there too. If you're 1st and 2nd in the two categories, coming out as victor is not a shock and not a scam.

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We are victims of our own success

I think more than anything, you are victims of jury voting. I can definitely understand the frustration that those who paid to make votes (or indeed, even paid to watch the TV/Eurovision to start with, depending on country) were, whilst not actually ignored, it may feel like that to those who voted, given it was not their votes who eventually chose the winner.
The results are also slightly cruelly given, both to the singers and the public at home, which probably doesn't help calm the voters down when the jury decided most of the votes that led to a winner.

[Chrill]

We're struggling to find a venue, guys.

Stockholm has 3 major arenas: Globen hosted the event in 2000 and again in 2016 but will be shut for all of next year due to repairs and renovations. The Tele2 Arena is a football stadium with a retractable roof, as is Friends Arena (our national arena for football). Both of these are used by Swedish football clubs who oppose renting it out to Eurovision since they would be forced to play elsewhere for over a month.

In Gothenburg, the only potential venue Scandinavium is an old indoor arena set to be demolished. Even if it is still standing in 2024, the roof is incapable of carrying the weight of the Eurovision rig.

In Malmö, which hosted the event in 2013, a lot of people stayed in Copenhagen instead which removed all financial benefits for hosting Eurovision.

We could be going to a smaller town, for example the Hägglunds Arena in Örnsköldsvik or Husqvarna Garden in Jönköping.

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We also struggled to find a venue at first, either the arena had too many things booked that couldn't be cancelled/reschedulled or they didn't meet "EBU requirements", whatever they may be, not helped by the BBC placing a blanket ban on London to 'move opportunities outside the Capital'.

I can understand people staying in Copenhagen instead of Malmö, especially if (although google says no) Denmark is generally a tad cheaper given close range, or people who just wanted to explore 2 countries instead of 1 in one go. I think given Hägglunds Arena hosts Melodifestivalen (although not the final) quite a lot and does a good job of it, I can see that being a location as a Eurovision host, although I guess that depends on if Örnsköldsvik has the infrastructure to host a global event. One of our cities, Brighton, withdrew due to deciding its infrastructure wouldn't hold up, despite being a popular tourist destination as one of our better seaside towns. I also looked up the population of Örnsköldsvik, just under 33K, which might be less than the amount of people heading over for Eurovision

It's a shame Avicii Arena / Globen can't put off its reservation for a couple of months, heh.

Also whilst looking up capacities, I found a sport called 'Bandy', due to a capacity for specifically that being listed for Göransson arena, dang that's a giant sheet of ice used for that compared to Ice Hockey.

I am guessing preparation, hosting, and then disassembly for Melodifestivalen final is relatively short, if the football team at Friends Arena manage that each yeah without complaints compared to Eurovision.

We're struggling to find a venue, guys.

Don't be afraid of reaching out to the BBC to host again

In other news, Käärijä's Cha Cha Cha charted at #6 in the UK, making it the first / only song sung in Finnish to chart top 10 in the UK. More heartbreak though as once again Loreen beat Käärijä, with Tattoo charting 2nd.

[Chrill]

Also whilst looking up capacities, I found a sport called 'Bandy', due to a capacity for specifically that being listed for Göransson arena, dang that's a giant sheet of ice used for that compared to Ice Hockey.

Bandy is basically ice hockey with football-ish rules. 11 a side, football pitch, it essentially grew out of "football on ice" 100 years ago. Bandy is rather a regional sport, with all gold medals bar one going to Soviet Union/Russia or Sweden. That one gold medal that didn't go to either country instead went to Finland, I'm sure it was a massive upset. Obviously Sweden won in 2023 with Russia banned, which made it a rather pointless world championship.

Fun fact, Somalia has a national bandy team which was founded in Sweden by Somali immigrants. They have entered the World Championship a couple of times, their best finish 16th (out of... 16).

Another fun fact, the first time Sweden entered the Hockey World Championships, we did not have a hockey team so they sent the Swedish bandy team. They weren't great.

We also have innebandy (indoors bandy) or, as it is called in English, floorball. If you thought bandy was dominated by a small group of nations, floorball is worse. Out of 14 Men's World Championships, Sweden has won 10 and Finland has won 4. Only 3 times out of those 14 did Sweden and Finland NOT meet in the finals, with Finland missing the final (but finishing 3rd). Sweden's worst ever result in the Floorball World Championships is a silver medal. And for the Women's Championship, well Switzerland won once but the rest are Finnish or Swedish.

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I'll reuse this thread, instead of making an ESC2024 already

In Malmö, which hosted the event in 2013, a lot of people stayed in Copenhagen instead which removed all financial benefits for hosting Eurovision.

We're off to Malmö! I wonder if they'll do some things to encourage people to stay local to help keep the krona in Malmö this time around. If last time around it was bad enough to lose the majority of financial income.
There was an idea in Stockholm to build a temporary arena, which guess is essentially an industrial-scale tent that is used for Battlebots in a large Las Venturas Las Vegas lot. I'm kind of sad that didn't happen, as they could have done that and fine tuned it to precisely what the competition needed, instead of ad-hoc changing of the Malmö Arena.

[Chrill]

There was an idea in Stockholm to build a temporary arena, which guess is essentially an industrial-scale tent that is used for Battlebots in a large Las Venturas Las Vegas lot. I'm kind of sad that didn't happen, as they could have done that and fine tuned it to precisely what the competition needed, instead of ad-hoc changing of the Malmö Arena.

At least the Malmö Arena is a proven Eurovision host. Building a massive tent, on budget and in time, is a massive undertaking. I'm sad we're not doing Stockholm since the arenas are larger (thus more likely for me to score tickets) and local so that I don't need a hotel room.

All the hotels in Malmö and Copenhagen are already booked for the 2024 ESC weekend, so I guess I can't be bothered. We'll probably win again sometime around 2030.