[gottago]

Hosting wise I feel like it was faultless, but as in genuinely faultless. Haven't had a chance to watch back the semis on TV but have watched the grand final in full last night and I honestly don't think I saw a single error throughout the whole thing! I'm racking my brains for even the smallest of fudges but can't remember seeing anything go wrong. Please do correct though! Certainly a step up from Italy's broadcast of the legs of a chair and a faulty stage last year!

The voting was another thriller thanks to the current voting system. I have to say though, while I didn't mind Mel's commentary during the acts, she truly offered nothing of any value whatsoever during the voting. Hearing her basically say very slight variations of "ooh look at that", "wow" and "there they go up the board" 37 times was extremely poor. I actually think they could have got away with no commentary for the entirety of the voting period as Graham and Hannah were so entertaining.

What was interesting is the BBC seemed to made a conscious decision to have the presenters say basically nothing as Loreen was making her long walk to the stage. Normally you get a lot of rambling and filler from the hosts and I think the BBC decided to scrap that all together and leave the commentators to it, which makes sense as there's probably a lot more for them to say in the closing moments: reviewing the night for their own act, discussing who their country voted for, saying their thank yous, commenting on the winner etc.

Liverpool was quite an extraordinary host city. I've never been to Eurovision before this year but it felt like the buzz was probably on a whole other scale to what you normally get. Every inch of the city was covered in Eurovision in some way, there were live performances round every corner, really poignant art and information related to Ukraine, the sun beaming down, branding on every pole and bus stop, EU flags everywhere, it was a sensational week and one I'll never forget.