[DamC]

Not lazy journalism as it's not the BBC reporter saying it but the Managing Director of the arena. She probably means the arena is rented out for five weeks before the shows.

[p2004]

The stage will have to be up quite a bit before the actual show. Before the artists even arrive in Liverpool for their rehearsals, there are usually stand-in rehearsals to make sure that everything is working and to show the delegations how their plan works out on stage so that there is some time to make some amends before the final show. It will certainly not take that long to build, as it has to be ready for the first team of stand-ins even to move in.

And regarding the staging of the Swedish act Loreen, it is almost certain that SVT (the Swedish broadcaster) will have to amend the staging for Liverpool. In the Swedish national selection for Eurovision, Melodifestivalen, the top part of the "panini press" staging was hung from the roof and it is understood to be quite heavy. It appears that the EBU and organisers are not keen on letting delegations hang stuff from the roof like that, so they are coming up (or maybe have already come up) with an alternative staging proposal. It will be interesting to see how the song stands up with whatever new staging Sweden sticks on - although Tattoo is certainly a solid song from the song perspective, the live element is very highly dependent on the staging, which really gave it an edge in Melodifestivalen and stood to give her a solid edge in Liverpool too.

[jlmiller]

More information on how the postcards will look has been revealed: www.bbc.co.uk 

111 locations, 37 acts: Eurovision 2023 Postcards announced - Media Centre
This year’s Postcards will visit locations across the UK, Ukraine and participat…
  Source: www.bbc.co.uk

[aaron_scotland]

twitter.com 

Doesn't bode well for the UK I fear

[Stuart]

Doesn't bode well for the UK I fear

I concur.  Last year we had a good song and Sam Ryder had toured Europe promoting it for months. We sort of won, it was only the phone vote that turned it, and we know that was based on just support for Ukraine which Sam even encouraged with his shout-out at the end of his performance.

Last year we had:

[*]popular established TikTok performer
[*]bloke with a beard and long hair
[*]sparkly suit
[*]great voice
[*]great stage set
[*]Oh, and the song was really good!


We ticked all the Eurovision boxes for once.

This year, we have a weak entry with a song called "I wrote a song".  Blimey, is that really the best they could come up with? We deserve nil point.

[eyeTV]

I actually thought the UK song was really strong this year.... and then I saw that performance 😬

[aaron_scotland]

I actually thought the UK song was really strong this year.... and then I saw that performance 😬

Ditto. Ive played the music video for it a lot and had it in the top 10, but after that... Bottom right of the leaderboard 

[gottago]

....yeah I don't think a video filmed at a gig on a phone with no access to the sound mix or anything is going to be a particularly good indication of her live vocals on television.

I was at the London Eurovision Pre-Party last night and she sounded great. It's a really good song and it's going to be the perfect close for the show.

[DAL1189]

Doesn't bode well for the UK I fear

I concur.  Last year we had a good song and Sam Ryder had toured Europe promoting it for months. We sort of won, it was only the phone vote that turned it, and we know that was based on just support for Ukraine which Sam even encouraged with his shout-out at the end of his performance.

Last year we had:

[*]popular established TikTok performer
[*]bloke with a beard and long hair
[*]sparkly suit
[*]great voice
[*]great stage set
[*]Oh, and the song was really good!


We ticked all the Eurovision boxes for once.

This year, we have a weak entry with a song called "I wrote a song".  Blimey, is that really the best they could come up with? We deserve nil point.

This year we have an upcoming young artist who already has had a top 50 hit both in the UK and in the States, as well as a song that reflects where UK pop is today. I think people have been way too harsh about Mae's performances thusfar, if you've been following her pre party performances you'll know they've been experimenting with how much dancing she should do and it seems they're getting closer to a good balance that creates a stage presence that doesn't leave her out of breath by the end of the song. Other performers, including the highly tipped Norway, have had similarly flat pre party performances due to the variable acoustics available in these venues. Really only Spain, Austria, and Slovenia in my opinion have had consistently strong vocal performances regardless of where they perform. Come Liverpool, a controlled acoustic environment with playback vocals balanced well against the live performance, I'd be very surprised if Mae's live vocal ability was a major factor. The song is a bop, I think audiences are responding well to its catchyness and I've already heard it getting air play over here in Flanders where I live. A top 10 finish should be on the cards.

[Tim G]

I was also at the London Eurovision Party last night, and Mae is clearly improving performance by performance, although perhaps due to the format the song took last night.

At every other pre-party show, it's been just her and dancers with the backing track. They pulled out rather more stops for the big home performance last night, giving her a pair of backing vocalists, a live band and less dance moves.

I know she'll be back on just a backing track in Liverpool, but by God I'm hoping that they keep hold of her backing vocalists and keep the dancing down. It helped massively last night.