[LMBTO] And the Host City for Eurovision 2017 is...

Probably the most obvious choice from all of the original six cities that put their names forward officially but it was only at the press conference at 1200CET on Friday 9th September 2016 that the venue for the 2017 Contest was officially announced:



For some reason, this official English-language translation doesn't have the translator on it for the first 90 seconds or so (it was accidentally on the non-dubbed version) but all that was missed was an announcement that a Cultural City competition might result from the interest in hosting Eurovision.  You will have now read lots of information about what was said here - in a nutshell, the main points were:

• Dnipro was an unexpected Finalist but the committee were impressed with their bid.  The reasons for their not being considered in the end were the need to totally renovate their venue, the proximity to the Russian border and the need to have ships to bolster hotel space;
• Odessa was a very attractive bid but the big issues were the need for a roof to be put on their venue and the last-minute improvement of their airport;
• A "boxing battle between Odessa and Kyiv" - interesting choice of words, considering the background of the current mayor of Kyiv (Vitali Klitschko)!
• The vote was made just before this press conference (possibly to reduce the possibility of the information being leaked out?) - Kyiv 19 votes, Odessa 2, one abstention.  Very comprehensive...
• Kyiv was picked as it already had all the infrastructure in place - two international airports, river transport within the city, plenty of hotel space and the venue that needed the least work performed on it (the International Exhibition Center);
• There was a lot still to be finalised - even the dates were quoted as 'early May'.

In my opinion, now we have heard more about the individual bids, it was always likely to be Kyiv.  Being the capital city meant that all the travel, hotel and security boxes were automatically ticked and once the venue was finally confirmed, 'the final piece of the jigsaw' must have fallen into place quite nicely so as to have given such an overwhelming result.  Could NTU have decided on Kyiv earlier?  Possibly, but the original proposal for that city's venue was the sticking point for the Ukrainian authorities and like Sweden last year, the host nation wanted to see if there was something better away from the capital that they might have missed.  In the end, maybe bearing in mind that time was ticking on, the obvious choice was to go for the option that was almost ready.  Airports that need no adaptation, suitable internal city travel, plenty of hotel space, a host city right in the centre of the nation away from Russian influence and a suitable venue that will be able to stage a suitable arena and press centre with minimal changes and no double bookings with other events:
It looks more Stadthalle than Globen but 12-14,000 capacity is not to be sniffed at!  I remember the days of tv studios that held only 1500 people...

So it is going to be Kyiv - the definitive guide to "Everything you wanted to know about  Kyiv's bid but were afraid to ask" is at the esckaz website, including videos of the venue (inside and out) and the potential site for Euroclub.  It is well worth a look and there was absolutely no point in 'reinventing the wheel' on my part...

So we now know where and probably when, although veterans of the Eurovision press pack have warned against banking on those dates above at the moment and I would agree on that, if only for the throwaway statement in the press conference of it being in 'early May'.  If it was definitely on the 9/11/13th, I'm sure that the spokesmen at the reveal would have repeated that straight away - NTU and the EBU meet next week to finalise some matters and dates might be one of those, given that SF1 would clash with the Champions League SF and SF2 with the Europa League SF:
I am probably one of the rarities of being a football and Eurovision fan, so I suspect that most fans will not be fussed by this.  However, if the EBU want to maximise television market share and perhaps more importantly internet streaming space and time, these clashes might just influence when Eurovision 2017 is held.  At the moment, we'll go with the dates quoted in the official eurovision.tv blurb but don't be surprised if we end up waiting another fortnight to see who takes the 2017 ESC trophy (a week later than proposed at the moment would clash with the Day of Remembrance for the victims of  the Crimean Tatar genocide on May 18th, an obvious no-no, given last year's winning song theme).

So we have our host city, announced before Moscow, Düsseldorf, Baku and Copenhagen had done so in their time as host nations.  Doesn't seen so late now, does it?  What this does all show is that whoever wins and hosts in 2018 should not be so open and just 'keep schtum' until they have everything planned (venue/dates/presentations) and reveal it in one go to the waiting world.  Eurovision fans are now so desperate for information as early as possible that postponing announcements just attracts unwanted criticism and social media trolling - a lesson learned for the EBU too?

I am weighing up my options as to whether Kyiv should be my first ever Eurovision 'on the ground' - I will wait for next week's confirmation of dates, as that might make things a little clearer.  We might also start to get some potential music trickling in for next year - I tried to be topical and find a modern song about Kyiv but all I could find was this classical piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, with his piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition", Movement no.10 "The Great Gate Of Kiev".  I chose a version by the Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra as I thought that was apt:



Two minutes too long, no words and only 142 years before the September 1st cut-off for new material - apart from that, a really stirring tune for Eurovision!

I never had an issue with not knowing which city Eurovision was going to end up in next year but I am glad it has been announced, if for no other reason than it stops the endless Facebook and Twitter traffic about that very same subject.  Once we have the dates officially confirmed that they are what they are now and that the EBU aren't going to move them due to outside concerns, we can then drift our way through the next couple of months, increasing the numbers of nations participating and maybe even finding out who will be there.  On that front it has been very quiet...