The @ThoroughlyGood and thoroughly modest Jon Jacob is visiting Vienna for Eurovision. It will be his fourth trip to the contest. This year he’s breaking with tradition (a little). In the first of three posts for ESC Insight, he reflects on how he’s preparing for his week-long busman’s holiday.
Breaking news… kind of. I’m going to Vienna for Eurovision!
I cannot wait and I am stupidly excited by this prospect. This announcement is a little weird because, in essence, I’m really just going for what amounts to seven-day city break, that’s all. By way of a benchmark, I don’t recall ever getting as excited as I am now when me and my partner and I are planning our annual holiday together.
Eurovision trips are, as any Eurovision fan will tell you, special.
The Waiting Game
Every time I think of my impending pilgrimage (now less than two weeks away) I feel butterflies flutter in my stomach. There’s a tingle in the tips of my fingers. I can’t wait for it to begin. I am counting down the days. At the same time, I don’t want it to start because I know it will have to end. Hastening the moment is denying me the most precious of thrills: delaying gratification.
Delaying gratification for my fourth trip to Eurovision has manifested itself in an unusual way this time around. I’m forgoing my usually impulsive nature in favour of an uncharacteristically more strategic approach. There are notebooks full of different plans for my trip and a browser history teeming with all sorts of outlandish travel schedules (I was at one time going to take the overnight train to Vienna – sadly tickets were booked up rather more quickly than I thought they would be, and the strike by DB in Germany would have made it… interesting). There are lists of museums I might visit. There are other lists of recommended eateries. There are estimated timings for public transport (with contingencies factored in for traffic delays, longer-than-usual waits for lifts and underestimated walks to things.
The only thing not scheduled in detail are ablutions – I figured I’d leave some things to chance.
Jon Jacob and his lists
This new-found love of planning has also extended to calculating the best hotel to stay at using a complex algorithm consisting of proximity to public transport, the old town, the Eurovision venue, and budget. Such efforts are, contrary to what you might be thinking, unusual developments for me. Yes, a look back to my Baku trip and it turns out I was making similar detailed lists, the truth is I’ve always preferred things just happening. I’ve always valued serendipity over planning.
Now I’ve got a taste of the joys of planning, I can’t get enough of it. And part of that process has seen me re-evaluate just how much time I want to spend in the press centre watching rehearsals, something which I’ve always assumed was core to the Eurovision experience for a fan.
It’s always important to prepare for any eventuality when travelling abroad, so my mother told me
Just A Little Bit Of Work…
Originally I’d wanted to take a week off work for myself, soak up the atmosphere in the city, watch the semi-finals on the big screens in the Eurovision village in central Vienna and then hot foot it back to London on Saturday afternoon and watch the final contest on TV at home (I did that in Baku and rather enjoyed the process of travelling back before everyone else). I might also combine that with a nod to a pal’s 50th birthday celebrations the same weekend too.
Those plans and good intentions began to change when people at work cottoned on to the idea I was going.
“Seeing as you’re out there,” said one, “would you mind doing …”
So, unexpectedly (and rather delightfully) doing a spot of work on my travels has seen my holiday turn into a busman’s holiday and got me the chance to stay out in Vienna for longer, taking pictures for websites and social media accounts. Most people would object to having their holidays interrupted by work. Those whose hearts beat faster when they hear Charpentier’s ‘Te Deum’ will no doubt understand why I was happy to give over a little bit of time. It’s not like I won’t be taking pictures anyway.
A Snappy Family
My Dad is a photographer. My Uncle was one. His daughter has a passion for photography. Even if it’s not my full-time job and I don’t consider myself to be particularly brilliant at it, I do feel at home peering through a viewfinder. It runs in the family. The prospect of taking pictures instead of writing my way through an experience is a refreshing change on previous Eurovisions I’ve experienced. It also feels like I’m returning to my roots and those of my father’s too.
The photography I was first introduced to was one in which people clicked the shutter and hoped for the best. We had to wait for film to be developed and prints to be packaged up. We understood that time had to be taken between the taking of the picture and us seeing it in our hands. As a result, we lived in the moment just that little bit more.
Backstage at Oslo 2010 (Ewan Spence)
Digital photography and the platforms we distribute our creations on denies us the opportunity to live in the now. Instead, we use our cameras and phones and whatever to create the now. And as we do so, we avoid to the real now. We have become obsessed with capturing the now so that others can witness it (or gloat, depending on your outlook).
And as I’ve immersed myself in the planning of my trip, I’ve also been wondering: is there a chance to experience the wider Eurovision ‘in the moment’ – to resist capturing everything, but instead capturing something representative? Rather than ‘live-streaming’ my experience of something which means so much to me, is it possible to come up with a response to it which means just as much instead? Might it be possible to explore the city, and avoid camping out in the press centre; to gawp at the sights, but not the rehearsals; to reflect on the unusual stuff you see around you, not what is captured in a shaky hand-held video?
The Evil Attraction Of The Press Centre
Previous trips to the Eurovision bubble saw me very quickly get sucked in to proceedings in the press centre to such an extent that I didn’t see much life outside of it. In Riga, I set aside the Saturday afternoon before the final to explore the city, realising that I had left things all too late to admire the surroundings. In Dusseldorf I’d challenged myself to a 48 hour visit precluding me from any exploration of the city at all. And in Baku, fear of the unknown combined with an over-reaching multimedia project meant I spent most of my time in my hotel room editing video.
THe Baku press room goes Italian (image: Jon Jacob)
On all of these occasions I recall there being a sense of urgency about things, as though the stuff I was working on – stuff that was stopping me from exploring the city I had come to – was of paramount importance and had to be prioritised over city-bound experiences.
This time around I’ve deliberately gone the other way, trying to build my schedule so that the city comes first and the business end of the Eurovision comes second, and finding a way of reflecting that in picture-taking, for example. For a long time now I’ve missed the long sweeping postcard shots which introduce each contest – the geographical contextualisation of the Contest. I’ve also grown a little tired of the behind the scenes stuff too. I’ve never been particularly interested in who wears what, or who’s using the stage in what way – I’ve tried blogging about it but never really felt it was a true reflection of what fascinated me about the event. That is quite handy given that I’m also not terribly keen on large crowds or packed nightclubs.
Don’t Tell Me What She’s Wearing!
In the planning, something else has emerged which has surprised me. In stark contrast to previous years, I want to avoid the spoilers. I don’t want the endless analysis of what’s going on in rehearsals. I’ve noticed too that all I’ve wanted to know is what the song is, what I think about it now and if possible whether or not the performers can deliver a live vocal.
Any more than that and I’m denied the element of surprise. In digital photography terms that’s the equivalent of taking a picture and immediately looking at screen to see whether the shot is ‘good enough’. Instead I’d like to take the picture, trust my own judgment about the framing of the shot as I look through the viewfinder and wait until later before I start reviewing what I’ve captured.
Glen Bartlett at rehearsals
There’s a parallel to be drawn with the rehearsals too. I think I’d like to avoid the rehearsals as much as I possibly can. I want to avoid the spoilers. I want to place my trust in people whose work it is to make TV, to make the best TV they can. Watching their efforts will be the icing on the cake.
Seeing the minutiae of preparations risks denying a moment of pleasure. I don’t especially want to predict a winner (or the loser). I don’t want to be the person who did predict the winner either. What joy is left when you’ve experienced everything before the big night? It’s the equivalent of unwrapping all your Christmas presents before Christmas morning. I’d much prefer staring at the parcels under the tree and imagining what they could be.
Holding Back The Moment
Eurovision is, for those who love it, is a complex time. It’s a time when there’s immense anticipation, considerable excitement and an understandable need to indulge oneself. But, for the first time ever, I’m appreciating the opportunity to delay gratification, to keep ‘it’ at a distance for as long as I possibly dare. I’m enjoying making Eurovision a sensible indulgence. Right now, two weeks before I jet off to Austria, I’m planning on keeping my week in Vienna as much for me as I possibly can.
Jon Jacob is keeping a Eurovision diary. Read it at www.thoroughlygood.me/eurovision. You can find Jon on Twitter where he’s @ThoroughlyGood.