Yeah, Yeah, Fire
It doesn’t take a hot mess of drag queens to work out what happened to ‘Fuego’ in 2018. Placed alongside the bops, it lay quietly until it arrived in Lisbon. The press room’s reaction to the first technical rehearsal created a virtuous cycle of promotion and opportunity. One of Eurovision’s classic viral moments whipped up the frenzy. Buying a few more pyrotechnics saw Foureira storm into the pantheon of legends.
With the first and second technical rehearsals now closed to the press, how can we get a ‘Fuego‘ moment in 2024?
Welcome to one of the subtle moments of strategy at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. How will you use your two official rehearsal clips posted on the Eurovision social media channels?
What We Can’t See Any More
When all of the press centre could see all of your rehearsals, including the final run-through, a delegation would know that the full act would be on show. Get it right and the online buzz and press momentum would build quickly. This also put pressure on the artists to get that very first moment on the stage absolutely perfect, the camera angles to pick out the moments, the sound to be balanced… that’s not what a rehearsal should be, and the doors were rightly closed to the press.
The second wave of rehearsals stayed open for a few years, but this has now closed again. The all-up dress rehearsal is still open to the press, and it takes place in Malmö 2024 on Monday, May 6th. That afternoon is one of the busiest moments of the season, as Ben Robertson explained ahead of Liverpool 2023:
“Journalists wanting to try and be one step ahead of the game in informing the crowd about who is knocking it out of the park live will have one chance and one chance only to see the acts on stage. In contrast, last year, most artists performed in front of journalists for generally four occasions before that Monday night audience appeared. That one-shot reaction will put much pressure on the press corps to get it right.”
The Three Core Choices
That dress rehearsal is not the first time we will have seen something of the acts on stage. After each of the two technical rehearsals, an official clip will be released on Eurovision’s social media channels. The first clip will show a handful of shots and moments, along with some backstage colour, while the second clip may feature a longer clip of each song and stage performance.
What do you put in your clip? There are three broad choices here.
The Kitchen Sink
The first option, and perhaps the simplest, is to show everything. Get the big moment out there in the first rehearsal video, and reinforce the impact with the second rehearsal video.
This is pretty much an all-in bet to get as much buzz and chatter on social media as possible. Can you get out in front of the pack and gather enough momentum to be talked up as “That is so winning Eurovision this year?” It could means a loss of momentum in the community as the live shows grow near, but if you have enough of a lead, you should be fine.
There is some risk here. If the moment doesn’t land, there’s no opportunity to make it back up again, and as such, I wouldn’t expect the front-runners to consider this. I also wonder if SVT’s production team would nix the idea of giving away the show’s wow moments more than a week in advance.
Given there was so much work in-camera, Georgia had little choice in 2016 to have everything on show from the first rehearsal. ‘Midnight Gold’ was a psychedelic riot of camera effects, arresting guitar-driven Britpop, and a visual assault.
A Little Bit Of Ankle
The traditional approach here is to hint and tease what to expect but never actually show the goods. Just as the Victorians considered the sight of a bare ankle devastating, the first rehearsal video may show a collection of moments around the costume and the choreography.
This keeps many surprises back for the second rehearsal clip and the 30 seconds or so of the performance. You want to grab just enough buzz to keep the community interested and hooked but not enough to feel they have seen everything and move on to the competitors.
This is less of an immediate risk, but it assumes that you can keep everything in balance over the hopefully two weeks on the ground as a delegation.
Take 2023’s Käärijä. We might have seen ‘Cha Cha Cha’s‘ staging at UMK, but would that carry over to the Liverpool stage? How would the delegation use the larger space to create a grander spectacle? The rehearsal clips showed the first chorus; enough to show the same layout but just a little bit more, showing the vastly increased levels of shadow play. Meanwhile, the build-up, the rainbow shades to close the song, and how the dancing centipede would be highlighted… all that stayed out of sight.
Hide The Aces
The BBC played a blinder in Turin with Sam Ryder and the UK entry. The first rehearsal clip hinted at the Crystal Maze lie dome that Sam would be singing in
With Sam Ryder, the UK delegation from the BBC knew they had a wow moment. Not only was the prop going to open up and offer Sam to Europe, but the backing track submitted to the EBU in March included a brand new guitar solo to finish out the song. That stayed under wraps as late as possible and was never hinted at in any of the rehearsal videos.
When the prop was (literally) sprung, the resulting hype train had an open field; with nothing else close ‘Spaceman’ was going up, up, up.
The Hitchcockian twist of subtly showing the blueprint for the prop in the very first music video of Spaceman was the ultimate Easter Egg that we never spotted until it was too late.
The Silent Modifier
There is an extra card to play, but it is a wild card. In addition to the video clips from rehearsals, you also have photographs of the stage, the performers, and the show.
These are not under the complete control of the delegation. Instead the photography is taken, edited, and posted by Eurovision.tv web team. Nevertheless with footage and imagery at a premium during rehearsals week, articles still need illustrating, and the Eurovision website has a lot to choose from. If you can get some striking imagery on the website, you can expect it be shared around the social media sites rather quickly.
The smart delegation will work out how to use the photos and the performance clips in partnership.
When To Watch Malmö’s Media
And so to Malmö, as all the delegations take to the stage for two technical rehearsals over the next week. What will be held back, what will remain an unknown unknown, and how much will be exposed for all? This week has some important strategic decisions for each of our three-minute marvels.
Just to make things even more interesting, the big hitters are all spread out over the first five days. One of the leading songs could establish itself as a favourite and get a clear 24 hours of press before the competition can react. Curiously, it could be beneficial to run in the first Semi-Final and have more time to build up momentum.
The Moments That Could Matter
Saturday’s lead will likely come from Lithuania’s ‘Luktelk’ as we see how the driving beats and synced lighting fit on the Malmö Arena stage.
Sunday is likely a head-to-head between Finland’s ‘No Rules’ and Luxembourg’s ‘Fighter.’ Both of these need to be translated from National Final performances and retain the energy in a larger and differently sized space.
Monday should belong to Switzerland. With only pre-party performances to examine, ‘The Code’ remains a bit of a mystery in terms of both the choreography and, perhaps more importantly, the costuming.
Tuesday gives us a similar feel to The Netherlands. ‘Europapa’ has been a huge burst of energy in the Preview shows, but can it fill the arena without going over the top? This is more likely to be an ankle tease because the song is all about the three-minute build, which is something impossible to preview.
Finally, on Thursday, we have the big five and our hosts. While Olly ALexander’s team has been hinting at some unique staging (and there’s a suspicion that the BBC may try to do the hidden ball trick and change up the last thirty seconds on the backing track), the real action should be from Italy and ‘La Noia.’
The Sanremo stage is small and perfectly suited to Mango’s intimate performance, yet over the last few years, RAI has brought an almost perfect stage show to the Song Contest. I wonder what flavour of mango Mango is going to deliver?
Finding The Last Ounce Of Press Performance
2024’s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest doesn’t have a clear favourite as we head to the rehearsals. Some countries are pulling ahead, but any advantage gained in a close Contest will have a larger-than-normal impact on a song’s chances. You can’t win during rehearsals, but this year you can take a huge step forwards to lifting the glass microphone and winning Eurovision.