[LMBTO] Pre-Season Is Over - Let Eurovision 2017 Begin!

The Sunday after the Eurovision Final through to the end of August is traditionally a quiet time for the Contest we all hold so dear - occasionally there are artists announced for some of the smaller nations, we have been spoilt by the host city being announced already in recent years but we at least have a reasonable number of nations 'throwing their hat into the ring' and letting us know how they are going to select their entry.  This pre-season, as I'm going to call it, seeing I'm a football fan and that's the way my brain thinks, has been quiet...


Not that is necessarily a bad thing, for me at least - I have recharged my batteries (sort of) and allowed some time to post the odd article whilst waiting for anything to happen, full in the knowledge that once the NF season quicks off, it will be full steam ahead until midnight after the 2017 Final!

So, what has been happening so far?


Who Is Going To Be There?

Twenty-seven nations so far have put their names down for the 'party to end all parties' - okay, for the big one next year at least:

Which, to be fair, covers a massive swathe of the Eurovision 'world' - it contains nations who are down for the next Contest as soon as the previous one has finished (Sweden) and the occasional one who were touting for artists to apply beforehand (Estonia).  All the usual suspects plus the welcome return of Portugal to the Eurovision fold - will they go all Serbia/Israel/Spain on us and start letting their acts perform in English and maybe break into the top 5 for the first time? Even a Final appearance would bolster their nation's Eurovision fans - out of everyone above, what happens to the Tuga in 2017 will perhaps be the most interesting experience.  One nation noticeably absent from this list is my own, the United Kingdom - not really a concern as yet but as more effort had been put into the Contest over the last few years with seemingly little reward, maybe the powers that be at BBC Eurovision are taking time to work out where they go from here.  It wouldn't surprise me to hear an announcement out of the blue one day with full details of what is happening in 2017...


Where Are We Going?

Now the obvious answer to this is "Ukraine" but there are lots of fans on social media who are pontificating that we may be hosted elsewhere next May.  The reasons why?  We as Eurovision fans have been spoilt by knowing the time and place of the following year's Contest already in three of the last four years:


Notice the ruthless efficiency of the Swedish Eurovision machine - last year's venue was almost sorted the day after Måns Zelmerlöw had held the winner's trophy aloft, with other venues in Sweden putting themselves forward if they thought they could do any better!  I'm not sure if 8 July is just a co-incidence or if it is a special day there...

Because of these early announcements, a lot of fans have been concerned/annoyed/demanding a different country to host (delete where applicable) as Ukraine has yet to decide which city should be hosting the 2017 ESC.   Now the whole process of deciding the host city has been very open, in my view, and that might have contributed to the consternation.  The six cities that put formal bids into NTU (the host broadcaster) all had the opportunity to present their bids on a live 'Battle Of The Cities", as outlined here in the promo piece by potentially one of 2017's hosts, Timur Miroshnychenko:



It all looked good and a real novelty for all fans - I cannot remember ever seeing a process such as this to select the host city for Eurovision before.  Having watched the full two hours, it was clear that some bids were a nice video and not much else, whilst some came with the visuals AND a plan - the main sticking point for all cities was the lack of a suitable arena:



These presentations, plus the detailed plans, lead to three cities going on to be considered by NTU and the EBU - Kyiv, Odessa and Dnipro.  This was the part of the process that went all to plan - since then it has been a bit of a PR nightmare!  Proposed announcement dates twice have come and gone, the second of these was Wednesday 24th August which was postponed about twenty minutes before the streamed decision was due to be shown.  Dnipro have had enough and have seemingly left the 'competition', leaving just Kyiv and Odessa with a new date yet to be proposed, probably next month.  This 'will they, won't they today?" indecision is the reason for the social media outpouring of annoyance by fans, some of whom are now calling for the Contest to be hosted elsewhere and some who are now concerned with how other aspects of the hosting of Eurovision 2017 will be handled (infrastructure of clubs, transport around the city, tickets etc).

For me, at the moment, all Ukraine have been guilty of is being TOO open with their procedures.  Most host nations would have dealt with all of this privately, alongside the EBU, and when the city and dates were 'set in stone' would have made one announcement and that would be it.  Look at when most nations announced their host cities and/or dates:


Doesn't look so bad now, does it?  Ukraine have been victims of the promptness of Sweden and Austria in announcing their information early - they were up against the current Kings of Eurovision organisation and the broadcaster tasked with the 60th ESC, who would have been aware of the need to sort out the venue as early as possible.  Compared to the other years, not making a decision until September doesn't seem that big a deal, does it?  Copenhagen still had to gut an old disused shipyard and put loads of infrastructure into a derelict part of the city, whereas Baku only completed the Crystal Hall a few weeks before Loreen won in Azerbaijan!  I suspect the host of the 2018 Contest might learn something from what has happened here - don't pander to the desires of social media and the 'I must know now' culture we find ourselves living in, sort it all out behind the scenes and tell us all when it's all sorted...

From the little I have seen, Kyiv and Odessa would both make wonderful venues for the Contest:



I do not have any preferences and I fully expect Ukraine to be hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in May, when all of this PR who-hah will be a distant memory...

I didn't say "when are we going" to be there as that is another sticking point - the original dates would coincide with Remembrance Day for the victims of the Crimean Tatar Genocide on 18 May, something that would be very close to the heart of Jamala especially.  Having it a week earlier would bring the SFs into conflict with Champions League and Europa League semi-finals so maybe we will have a late Eurovision, last full week of May which would allow 18th May to be a 'quiet day' during the rehearsal week?


We know our first possible artist

I have already put forward my thoughts about the eight acts in the Swedish Radio competition Svensktoppen Nästa and the Final was today (Sunday 28 September).  Who out of the eight won?
Were they the act chosen by the jury to get a place in Melodifestivalen?  Have my preferences in a competition finally matched those of the public from that nation?  Well, let's have a quick look at how I placed the acts before the Final:


The running order differed slightly in the Final from the preview listings - Jimmy still opened the show and Noomi brought up the rear (so to speak).  For those that understand Swedish, here is the whole show to listen to but you can skip through to the songs themselves:



Listening to the Final performances, I still had all the acts in the same order, apart from Jimmy now having the best vocal over LiRiC and would now get my nod for top place.  My taste obviously gelled with the jury and public in one respect as Jimmy and his hillbilly tune made into the Super Final which would have solely a public vote - I was totally out of synch with the other Super Finalist which was Noomi!  To be fair, she did sound better live and the music was okay but LiRiC and SAVE were far better in my opinion.  Ah well, that's musical taste for you!  Both sung again for the SMS votes of the Swedish listeners - who would win Svensktoppen Nästa 2016?
Yep, Noomi, so what do I know?  I suppose 'Intoxicated' was more contemporary but Jimmy knocked "Rising Rivers" out of the park every single time he sung and it was so damn catchy.  I know that the song itself could not be used during the Eurovision season due to the September 1st rule but something like that would be so mesmeric and such an earworm that I felt he would have done well at Melodifestivalen.  When you listen to the audience when Noomi is announced as an act to be in the Super Final, there is almost a feeling of 'really?' She sounds less sure vocally in the Super Final itself but this song must fit in more with the listening demographic of Sveriges Radio.

It was obvious that the jurors (one of whom is Christer Björkman) had thought differently to the voting public as, for the second year in a row, the winner of Svensktoppen Nästa did NOT get the wildcard Melodifestivalen place for 2017.  Who did?

No, neither of those...

The first act that could end up at Eurovision (although judging on previous years, it is quite unlikely), it seemed as though their actual look and performance might have given them the Melfest nod as Christer was quoted afterwards:


I suppose that is fair enough, given that "Need To Feel" is ineligible for the Eurovision selection process anyway and hearing these songs sung does not give a true impression on how an artist will come across at Melodifestivalen.  To get an idea of what the 'guru of Swedish Eurovision' was talking about, here is what these guys look like performing the song - at least you can see their performance skills come through:



They do look better and stick in my mind more than this song ever did - it will be interesting to see what they come up with for the big event next year...

So here we are - four days before the official start of the 2017 season of Eurovision.  It has been quiet compared to recent years but there is nothing to worry about, as far as I am concerned - it is still early days as far as getting a host city announced and we have a healthy number of countries already announced for next year.  We have even seen one act who MIGHT sing on the Eurovision stage of whichever Ukrainian city we will find ourselves at.  Hopefully September 1st will kick everything into gear and we will start to have confirmed artists for their nations, songs they will be singing and most importantly where we will be going and when!