Belgrade 2.0

Eurovision - the drug of the nation

Posted 2008-05-19 02:56 under Culture by Viktor Marković / 1 comments

There are few things one finds out about Eurovision when the competition is held in one’s city.

First of all is that there’s a whole bunch of Eurovision blogs following every single move of the contestants. My feed reader is set up to pick up any mention of ‘belgrade’ at various blog search engines, and lately, all I seem to be getting is Eurovision-related posts. Here’s the cream of the crops: Eurovision forever, Posh and Becks, Eurovision news, Eurovision express, Je t’adore ESC, Toni Sant, ESC Big mouth, Making the Belgrade (this one is extremely detailed) and so on and so on. Good chance for Belgrade to get some exposure on the web too, and not only on TV.

Second thing is – Eurovision does not last for only one day – there’s rehearsal, dress rehearsal, rehearsal of the rehearsal and what not! I guess this is the way they make sure there isn’t any spontaneity or improvisations during the main event (which itself is divided into – three events). This means that even more money is spent during the contest than I first thought – most of it will end up in Belgrade, hopefully.

Eurovision is not limited only to European countries, but to those that are members of the European Broadcasting Union. This way, anyone that becomes a member of EBU in the future is eligible of competing – which means that one day we may get a Brasilian, South African or Texas representative – now that would be something to look forward to!

Some local gossip: after spending lot of money organizing the contest for the presenters, national TV decided at the end that nobody is good enough so instead they hired one experienced TV host presenter and Zeljko Joksimovic, who had to learn English just for the occasion.

Since Eurovision is sort of a LBGTTQ (and all other acronyms involved) there’s been some fears about the safety of tourists inclining to at least one of the letters.

Gay Straight Alliance have made a leaflet concerning this so here goes, for what it’s worth:

In short, don’t have sex in public places (even if you really, really want to) and you’ll be fine.

Tune in the next post where I dig into the depts of Eurovision dirt to bring you the best of this year’s competition – best babes, best songs, best songs meant to be funny and best songs not meant to be funny but turned out that way (aka “the real Eurovision” songs).

For previos coverage of the event on this blog, check out these posts:

Eurovision Mumbo Jumbo
Eurovision 2007 about to start
How to beat bloc voting

1 Comments

Comment

1. David Andersson on 24/05/08 07:40 PM

   At least you have a really good song. Croatia’s… oh, my, god…. I understand why my fellow brothers love it, but please… Why make a fool of yourselves.

   I hope for a 3-years-in-a-row Serbian victory, just as with Ireland a couple of years back. Hajde Srbija!