Malmö will host the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.
Few in the Eurovision community are cheering loudly.
“Gothenburg is due its turn.” “Stockholm would be big enough to accommodate the entire Eurovision community.” “Örnsköldsvik offers this glorious fantasy adventure taking the Contest into a land of spectacular wilderness!”
Instead we are going back to Malmö. Sweden’s third city now has the honour of hosting its third Eurovision Song Contest.
It’s Safe
I’ll be the first to say that the Malmö bid is the one that is least exciting of the four with my journalist hat on. On the cards for 2024 is basically a sequal to what we witnessed in 2013, and it’s hard to find an obvious unique selling point for Malmö that makes this Eurovision stand out. The promise of more meeting spots in the city and more ways for the local population to engage with the contest, as SVT’s Executive Producer Ebba Adielsson claims, isn’t the kind of change that will grab any headlines.
The reason for Malmö to host is ultimately quite simple. This is the most safe option out there. Malmö Arena sits there waiting to be used with perfect transport connections and a template that we know works well. The infrastructure required from now until May lands at zero. No new roof on Scandinavium. No temporary arena at a shipyard. No cruise ships docking up outside your port for two weeks.
Malmö has everything ready to host tomorrow.
Note here how Ebba Adielsson’s press release statement included the phrase “Malmö was eventually chosen as it met all the criteria”. Yes these other bids had creativity and passion but in the tick-box exercise only one of them had full marks on the test.
It’s Sustainable
The key sustainability parameter taking focus in this bidding war wasn’t environmental or social, it was financial. The cost of living crisis has hurt broadcasters across the continent and is one reason Liverpool saw just 37 nations take part. Here in Sweden the country has felt that hard, with the country’s larger household debt burden have seen it vulnerable to interest rate increases, which have resulted in the country’s currency hitting lows not seen before for a generation.
This is not the time for risky architecture projects and logistical challenges. “Keep it simple, stupid” is always a good guiding principle, and even more so this year.
Furthermore, remember SVT’s contests in 2013 and 2016 had some of the lowest budgets in modern history, and downscaling the ever-expanding nature of Eurovision costs is part of what SVT brings to the modern Song Contest.
It’s Swedish
Malmö may not light your fire but it will put on a functional show. Eurovision in Malmö is that safe option and, when you’ve won for the third time in eleven years, the safe option is absolutely the correct choice.
While the Danes across the Öresund are famous for their hygge, that untranslatable concept of coziness and self-contentment, us in Sweden have our own cultural word of our own.
Lagom. It means taking not too much nor too little. Being lagom means to aim to find the right balance to live well, but not stand out from the crowd.
Malmö 2024 is the lagom contest. It won’t attempt to be the best ever for creating a flashy spectacle, but it might well end up the greatest for just making things run smoothly.
It’s All About The Show
Ultimately let’s just remember that SVT’s core product with Eurovision is producing a TV show. The Malmö Arena is by far the easiest option to produce television.
That is why we are heading there again next May.
I was kinda hoping for Örnsköldsvik, for variations sake, but I realise their arena is a *little* too small, and it’s a remote city. And I’m thinking in any given year neither the Tele2 or Friends Arena would be available, as the footballs teams would alway be unwilling to move out. But then what swayed Fortuna Düsseldorf? Also, would setting up a contest in either of those stadiums damage the pitches?
We know Malmö is reliable, and I had a hunch as it seems the most sensible and practical option. I was wondering, how do mot Swedes see the city? Is it similar to how Brits see Birmingham?
I’m aware Gothenburg’s arena is too outdated and dilapidated, do they want to replace it with a new one? Until they do, I expect the three big cities would just take it in turns to host whenever Sweden wins in the future (Stockholm in the improved Globen)
What persuaded Fortuna Düsseldorf in the end was the temporary football stadium (Lena Arena) built behind their regular stadium – they effectively played in the back garden for a few weeks.
But who paid for that? Did the team profit from lending away their stadium? Could either of Stockholm’s teams ever be willing to do this?