Disappointedly Sitting On The Fence

For those who have not yet looked at what is in the news in Eurovision land you may not be surprised to hear that there will be only 39 countries in this years Eurovision Song Contest, as the trends were suggesting, there are no surprises on the list, only the absence of four countries. According to Jon Ola Sand, three out of the four have left due to financial reasons. And then there is Turkey.

Also in the news was the changes to the rehearsals schedule. In future we are looking at closed rehearsals for the first round and open rehearsals for the second round of rehearsals. I have no problem with this. Countries arrive at Eurovision and generally the amount of rehearsals done by countries before Eurovision varies a lot, depending on the broadcaster or artist. It makes a lot of sense not to let everyone be able to see the first couple of rehearsals. Those of you who follow the rehearsals may have noticed that in each of the last three years the eventual winners were slated by the press for their first rehearsals. As long as some level of footage is released from the first rehearsals I really could not care.

In addition the other noticeable change is that rehearsals will begin the 8 rather than 9 days before the first semi-final. However in reality this is just one nights accommodation savings, and really the higher prices for accommodation occur during the week of the contest. Looking at a four star hotel in Malmo this will represent an average saving of €160 per delegate. Based on the Irish figures obtained through the freedom of information act, this would represents a saving of about 1.5% for Ireland [excluding the participation fee]. Once again I am drawn to mention a Big 5 country would make a saving of 7.75% if they had to arrive as early as some of the semi-finalists. [Assuming the same size delegation as Ireland].

Two Withdrawals In One Day

The news of the withdrawal of Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina in one day is genuinely shocking news. Bosnia's decision appears to be due to financial reasons, however Turkey's decision is in light of recent rule changes in the contest such as the 50:50 voting and the big 5 rule. This means that we are currently looking at a contest of 40 or less countries (current projection is 39, assuming only Armenia returns), which is concerning.

Given that at least two of the four of the countries who have withdrawn have withdrawn due to financial costs of the contest it will be interesting to see if the changes that will be introduced by the EBU this year will actually allow for a reduction in the participation fees for countries who cannot afford to pay.

Though there has been some discussion about the costs of coming to Eurovision for two weeks and the price of that particularly in an expensive country like Sweden, it still is a problem. I would argue that more should be done to assist helping with the expense of the contest. While some have discussed shortening the rehearsal times you still are probably looking at a ten to twelve day contest which would represent a 14%-25% cut in the costs of accommodation, which is probably one of the biggest costs that are part of the contest outside the participation fee. Given that we are also looking greater numbers of performers on stage in the future (i.e. changing from a max of 6 to a max of 8) this is likely to off set any gains on the accommodation expense.

However I would argue that the EBU should seek to minimize costs through simple things such as hiring out whole hotels for competitors, rather than leaving individual countries to find their own accommodation. How costs to individual delegations can be minimised by using a certain city, particularly for countries that are large enough to have competition for the contest, should be taken into account when selecting a host city.

I understand that my inner accountant has probably had to much say in this piece but there you have it.