This weekend marked the end of the official Eurovision Song Contest pre-party season, with artists gathering in Madrid to perform at PreParty Espana 2025. For the past month, starting in Oslo, many of the class of Eurovision 2025 have spent their weekends criss-crossing the continent to sing at shows, meet with fans, create content for their socials, and—as the name might suggest—party.
After this year, with the Manchagen Eurovision Festival ramping up to become another big event on the pre-party circuit, I think it might be time to re-evaluate the purpose of pre-parties and what and who they might be for.
The Artistic Demands Of The Pre-Party Season
First of all, let me be clear – I love pre-parties. This year, I attended both Amsterdam’s Eurovision in Concert and the full weekend of events at Manchagen, and left both events with a hoarse throat, sore feet, and a nourished soul. These events allowed me to meet old friends, make some new ones, and find community with other people who want to scream along with old Eurovision hits on the dance floor at 2 AM. Pre-parties also offer a welcome ersatz Eurovision experience—the chance to see the artists without the high costs that often come with attending the actual event.
From the artist’s perspective, pre-parties can be incredibly draining. Artists fly to a venue, do press interviews, meet with fans, perform, and then jetting off to the next gig and doing it all again. And again. And again. All of this is done during the period when they are simultaneously preparing for the Song Contest, a show that will be watched by far more people than their pre-party audiences.
While pre-parties are a great way to build some buzz before the show, they can also be harmful.
Performances at venues which are nothing close to what might be available at Saint Jakobshalle are poured over by fans, like Greek oracles examining entrails, to sniff out any signs of weakness. People make judgments based on audience livestreams shot on cell phones. I hold my hand up here as someone who has shared shaky videos of live performances, but largely to highlight a fantastic performance that I wish others could have seen.
For some artists, the choice of whether to appear or not ends up being a no-win situation. Take the case of Germany’s Abor and Tynna, who were heavily criticised when they did a playback performance of Baller at Eurovision in Concert, due to illness on Tynna’s part affecting her vocals. They cancelled their appearances at subsequent preparties, but now they face increased scrutiny in Basel.
I wonder how many other artists may have gotten sick from all the germs they’ve been exposed to going across the continent? Does anyone want to be performing at the Eurovision Song Contest with the flu? Marcus and Martinus noted they were sick during Eurovision in Concert 2024, so it is not unknown.
Focus On What They Do Best
Rather than create a pressure cooker of pre-party expectations for artists, I think we as a community need to reset our expectations of what pre-parties should be.
First, the value of a pre-party should not be measured by the number of same-year Eurovision artists. Eurovision in Concert tends to lead the pack here, but it also offers a very different experience to others, with a more family-friendly atmosphere, seated options, and a limit of one song per artist. This night in Amsterdam feels like an introduction to that year’s class of Eurovision artists for Dutch fans, in addition to being a gathering for highly engaged fans.
Other pre-parties feel like they are catering to people who have been following National Finals, like London Eurovision Party, which featured Dolly Style. Some may even feature Eurovision-adjacent competitors, like Manchagen, which had Grant Knoche, the Texas representative from the one-off American Song Contest (a plea to organisers: Next year, please book Wyoming’s Ryan Charles to see the dance floor explode to ‘New Boot Goofin’.‘
Second, pre-parties should focus on what they do better than anyone else. As noted above, Amsterdam offers a concert experience. In its first year in Manchester, the Manchagen Eurovision Festival had performances from drag queens – with a big role for local queen Banksie – to highlight the links between queer culture and Eurovision. London’s pre-party is the place to go for a guaranteed iceberg moment – whether that’s hard-nosed reporter Emily Maitlis showing up on stage to introduce Marko Bošnjak’s Poison Cake, or comedian and presenter Mel Giedroyc posing next to a pool of vomit.
Building the personality of each pre-party makes it easier to find the one that is the best fit for fans.
Third, don’t forget to put the party in pre-party. Rather than focusing on these as events that help to inform betting odds—because, honestly, everything is up in the air until we see staging in Basel—we should be focusing on these as chances to bring together our community.
This is where we can be among the people who understand our joy when Nina Zizic performers her 2023 synth-pop banger ‘Paranoiac!‘ And in a year when Eurovision is held in an expensive location like Basel, a pre-party might be the only chance we have to see friends from around the world… (and now, a houtout to pals from Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Estonia, and down the road in London that I met on the dance floor.)
Eurovision will be over in less than a month, so we should seize every chance to celebrate everything about it, not just 2025.
Finally, pre-party organisers need to realise that these events aren’t just gruelling for the artists, they can be gruelling for fans as well. Not all of us have the stamina of Justyna Steczkowska, who can spend hours on stiletto heels without breaking a sweat. No one seems to be hungover after a pre-party; rather, everyone is in pain after standing for hours and hours at a time.
There are small things that organisers can do for everyone, like having some seating areas for people who need a short break, or making food available at the venue for people who may have forgotten to eat before the show. And – although I can’t believe I’m writing this – too much Eurovision can be a thing. Even with breaks scheduled, six or seven hours of performances is a lot.
Party Together In 2026 And Beyond
So I’m glad to see that pre-parties are thriving, but the demand for more shouldn’t come at the expense of artist or fan health. Rather, we should be working as a community to figure out how to make sure that the pre-parties we have are the right fit for the people performing and attending them, so no one burns out before the actual competition.