[Flux]

Overall enjoyed the presentation last night. Graphics look lovely and the staging is wonderfully versatile. Quite a few countries haven’t really seen the potential of the floor screens in their performances, though. Cyprus for example integrate it beautifully and make every step on that floor count, but Serbia go to huge lengths to make their act look as if she’s on a rock in the middle of the sea… only for her to then step off that rock and break the illusion a minute or so into the song. The floor could have been utilised so much more in that performance.

The postcards are a big letdown this year, though. As others have said they’re more personality driven than country specific, but that’s fine. The issue is that they just look… cheap. They feel like something which would have been self shot during Covid. I wonder if the “shot on a phone” look is part of a cost cutting exercise? Saves them arranging actual shoots in the countries themselves, with the final X Factor-style “hero shots” of the acts just all shot at the same studio in Sweden.