Eurovision 2013 or How to get rid of it? In 2012, after the victory of the singer Lorin in Baku, Sweden immediately began preparations for the fifth meeting of the competition at home. They began the search for the future capital and chose three condidat cities Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö. The latter was the winner in this race.
Malmo becomes Eurovision capital for the second time. Now we have to choose a venue. It is from this moment that a slight bewilderment begins when the Swedes decide to save money on organizing the main song party in Europe. As many people as possible should see the Eurovision Song Contest live, a principle that has been taken into account since Belgrade. And if the Malmö Arena Ice Palace with a capacity of just over ten thousand people corresponds to the level of the previous four sites, then I am afraid to imagine what can await us next.
The mood was already spoiled and these pathetic arguments of the Swedish organizers about “focusing on songs” just killed me, and the alleged “poor hearing on large venues” was also not convinced. But I was waiting for this competition in the hope to see what the Swedes will oppose the bright and colorful Baku-2012.
Over the course of three nights watching what was happening in Malmö, I came to the conclusion that Sweden had decided to just quietly host the contest in another country. The Scandinavians are frugal on their own, but what I saw just in no gate. Reducing to a terrifying minimum the effects, both pyrotechnic and visual, left me confused. It became clear that the scenery of the show will not save the same as disrespect for those who wanted to get on it, but was not among the lucky ones. We can talk about this for a long time, but now about the main thing, about the production.
The first semifinal was opened by schoolchildren, singing the winning song in a duet with Lauryn gave the charm of the show, then 17 candidates for the final presented their songs, and after the counting of votes began, the production of “Nothern Lights” was slightly incomprehensible to me.
The second semi-final was pleasantly surprised by its start, the production with the presentation with the orchestra on imaginary instruments was good, and during the counting of votes, the performances of Dorin and Agnes were a pleasant dessert at the end.
Final. The performance of the Eurovision Song Contest anthem 2013, under which all participants of the show went, did not impress, but also did not irritate. After all the competitive performances, Lorin came on stage, who performed her hits and it was after her performance that it turned out that the voices were not all taken into account and that you need to wait a little for their announcement. This delay, coupled with my dissatisfaction with some “lucky” who got to the finals, already indignated me, but this happened at the competition, well, the counting, nevertheless ended and the usual announcement of the results went. But what happened during it struck just to the gut. To announce the winner before the end of the announcement for me as a fan of this competition was a blatant disrespect to both fans and participants. Denmark was a solid leader at that time and no one would have bypassed it, but it could not be done in my opinion.
Competitive songs were mostly average, some, worthy in my opinion of winning the competition, were left behind the final, but the victory of Denmark I did not cause complaints.
Host Petra Mede, for the first time in 17 years she led the competition alone and no matter how she joked, no matter how hard she tried to attract attention to herself, she failed. And the strange outfit in the second semifinal, in which she went on stage simply killed.
Conclusion: Ordinary Eurovision, or rather its wires, a faded attempt to organize a show with a poor choice of venue and conducted on it with a hack, especially striking in the second pilaf of the final.
4 out of 10