[LMBTO] Closer To The Stars - The London Eurovision Party Press Event...

I think that I was spoilt at Eesti Laul - I thought that all press passes came with your name and blog title on it!  Yes, yet another chance to meet the stars of Eurovision as a member of the 'Press Pack', this time in my home nation, in London.  I had applied for press accreditation for The London Eurovision Party 2017 (#LEP17) whilst I was in Estonia and even before I had secured a ticket for the main event (having been at work when the first tranche came out and were sold within an hour - must get someone else to buy my ticket if that happens again!).  I managed to secure a ticket for the show on March 21st (you'll get the rundown about that in another post) but only heard about attending my second 'Q&A' session five days before the show:
LEP17-44?  Made it all sound very official!

So within the space of a month I had gone from obsessed fan and blogger/opinion writer to someone deemed worthy enough of being able to be 'up close and personal' with the stars of Eurovision at two separate events.  My first experience at Eesti Laul gave me a great insight into how everything to do with a foreign NF worked, from the press conference all the way through being a 'pretend juror' - being able to attend #LEP17 as a interviewer was going to be a whole different experience, or at least that was how I felt.  What it did mean was that I would have to get up a lot earlier than I originally intended on Sunday 2nd April, so as to get from Bristol to the venue in time...

I'll go into the nitty gritty of my day when I discuss attending the Party itself - this post is going to be solely concentrating on my 'Press afternoon' as an overview.  I was going to put all my six interviews on this one post but I have decided to change tack and have this as an introductory piece with one interview that I didn't plan for or have any prepared questions!  Luckily the subject of the interview was very eloquent and was able to allow me time to 'think on the hoof'...

For those of you who have never been to a press event like this, you've got the outline on the afternoon above - the venue looks like this:
No time for expensive steak dinners though!  Ruby Lane is above the restaurant - this was taken as I was walking back to prepare for the evening's events - if you know who they are, you can make out some of Eurovision's finest journos (Richard and John from Eurovision Ireland, Benny from the Metro newspaper).  I think I can see the back of Nathan Trent's head there too (Austria) and in a way he helped to teach me a valuable lesson when it comes to meeting the stars and interviewing them:

As I was walking into the Ruby Blue at about midday, he had just finished chatting with Andy Carlisle, Stine and Jess of Eurovoxx.  I caught his eye, said hi and then, as I was being my usual reserved polite British self said "I won't bother you now, I'll meet you inside".  Did I get the chance to interview him later?  NO!  Did I speak to him again at all?  NO!

The press event here was a totally different way of working to Eesti Laul, where everything was timed due to dress rehearsals, where the Q&A sessions were for a certain length of time, where you got 2-3 minutes with each artist on a 1-2-1 level.  Here, it became obvious very quickly that sitting at a table was not going to get many interviews and that arriving there at midday was 'the calm before the storm':
Okay, so it all looked very peaceful and laid back but it did take a long time for anything to happen.  In fact, I think that the only artist that we of the Eurovision press saw up to 1pm was Jana from FYR Macedonia, so she was absolutely swamped by anyone and everyone (I got my interview with her later).  In the meantime, I experienced some of the Leicester Square atmosphere from the balcony:
A lovely, lovely day and good for interviewing visually, if not always audibly!  There was a performance artist below operating a chainsaw at one point...

Most of the artists were directed to another room to be interviewed by the mainstream media such as BBC, ITV etc - we got to see them after those sessions.  The other aspect of this sort of event I got to understand quite quickly was that you can't wait for someone to wander up to you - you need to be proactive!  And the person to talk to in order to get that all important interview is NOT the artist themselves...


This helped me especially where Czechia and Poland were concerned, as I have been chatting with Greig Watts of DWB Music, the team of songwriters involved in both entries, beforehand and he directed both Martina and Kasia my way for a chat.  I also got to have a chat with the Deputy Head of Delegation of Germany who talked about how Levina had already been touring some of the other nations not on the 'Pre Party' list, such as Georgia - that delightful lady will have her own interview 'post' soon, as will the following artists who I got to interview on Sunday:


I had no idea who I was going to get to interview so I had prepared questions for EVERY artist on the bill, including the special guests (I thought that they might be there too):
Good to be prepared!  And yet my first interviewee was none of these - I had no questions prepared for this gentleman who was at the event promoting his book:
Here's a close up of it - Chris West was kind enough to supply me with a signed copy:
I won't go into too much detail about the book here as the man himself did it so much better than I ever could:


A delightful spot on the balcony of the Ruby Blue led to a very informative interview with someone other than a Eurovision artist.  It was only when I got back home after my trip away to London that I had, in fact, seen his name in connection with Eurovision before - I had downloaded on my Kindle app effectively the same book but it had a different title:
Memories of what I remembered reading came flooding back - the Kindle version I had covered 2015 as the last Contest, whereas the new release will cover Stockholm as well.  It is a fascinating mix of what happened at each year's Eurovision, plus focusing on what cultural and political changes were occurring during those twelve months as well.  It was well worth a read then - when I have time (perhaps after Kyiv), I will re-read it to remind myself of all the changes that have taken place over 61 years!  I suspect that the change of title and appearance of the book will garner him a lot more book sales - it did look more like a social history commentary in the old format but now looks like a publication that will appeal to what, as I said in the interview, will be his largest potential market - Eurovision fans!  It has also been endorsed by Graham Norton, Mel Giedroyc and Sir Tim Rice, amongst others.  20th April is its official release date - keep an eye out for it...

Chris had helped me out in more ways than one - being my first interviewee on the day allowed me to check out that I wasn't being too waffly and that the interview flowed nicely, which it seemed to, thanks mainly to having a man talking so knowledgeably about his subject.  As I have mentioned above, the other five interviews will have their own posts immediately after this one, as I am sure that fellow fans and readers will be hopefully interested to hear their words about London, Eurovision and Kyiv.  I did get some pictures of artists that I didn't interview - Kristian (Bulgaria), Slavko (Montenegro) and Alma (France) were all in demand throughout and I just didn't get a chance to chat with them:


My experience this time as a press pundit was about four hours - I had bought myself the opportunity to be a 'VIP' for the night at The London Eurovision Party and needed to make sure that I didn't miss out on the 'Meet and Greet' section, which meant I had to be at the front door of the Café de Paris at 5pm sharp!  Being a part of the press again within a month was a superb experience and, like being hooked on a drug, I have to say that I want more!  Meeting these amazing people (and I do include other interviewers in that statement as well) is a real buzz and having the opportunity to interview them is really insightful.  I fully expect to put my name down for accreditation at future events that I attend - interviewing Eurovision stars at these events is something that I never imagined would happen when I started this blog almost four years ago.  Is it a natural progression?  I'll have to see where this magical journey takes me...

As I left the Ruby Blue, I noticed across the way a film poster for the movie playing at the Leicester Square Odeon:
Ironic?  Perhaps (not sure if it's in an Alanis Morrisette sort of way) but having said that, Johnny didn't need an adamantine-plated skeleton to subdue his opponents - just beautifully written songs and a wonderful voice!

Up next?  My individual artist interviews at #LEP17 and my first interviewees...