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The Press Centre (both digital and physical) has opened in Turin, and the Eurovision community prepares to see more of this years acts during rehearsals week. Fin Ross Russell is joined by Ewan Spence to look back over the first few days on the Italian ground.
Eurovision Insight Podcast: Daily News From Turin, Wednesday 4th May
Eurovision’s first rehearsals are over, the ever changing Contest is discussed, and something something Kinetic Sun something.
With Fin Ross Russell, and Ewan Spence.
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I think there is a blessing and a curse with closing the doors on first set of rehearsals to the fan press.
Blessing for the artist as they can have a quiet rehearsals without hearing the buzz about what happen during rehearsals. It shut them in a bubbles and help them concentrate on the performance instead on the noise from the bubble.
Such silence has an effect on betting sites who rely on the information from rehearsals and created buzz for betting prices. They will recover when public reports start coming out.
The curse is that it subdued the build up to the semi-final and final which is part of the contest. You also see Eurovision related sites, having problems finding some sort of material to publish and keep their audience on board. It is fascinating how each site has a different approach for the 1st 4 days where everyone were banned out of the rehearsals.
As for the kinetic sun – It’s a shame as the idea looks great and had a great potential, however the execution leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It is also a bit of a farce that you invest so much money in everything around Eurovision only to discover on the last moment that one of your main features is not working as it should.
TikTok – Have no idea to which degree this works. I am not on TikTok and as a rule I don’t watch rehearsals clips, so can’t make any judgement on that.
Enjoy the last part of the season, when we get to a conclusion. At the end we will have a winner.
Fin and Ewan, I think you’re being too kind to the powers-that-be. We all know that the 2022 changes are likely to stay. Like the fake tension of the 2016 vote reveal, and the pre-recorded vocals of 2021. It’s an appalling mistake to have a moving set which doesn’t operate quickly enough to be implemented when needed. Neither EBU or RAI have addressed that problem directly. They’ve left it to one of the national broadcasters to reveal the facts. Among those disadvantaged are poor Ukraine, whose backdrop is obscured. I also feel that fan sites have been treated shoddily with the crackdown on accreditations. Not a vintage year for the contest.