Good evening from sunny Stockholm. Over the next two weeks, you can expect the usual coverage of Eurovision rehearsals on Sofabet. From the press centre, I will tweet my impressions of each practice session as they happen, before posting an article summarising the day’s events. I can be found on Twitter here.
It feels like an open year, and I’ll try to bring as open a mind as possible to proceedings. It’s worth reminding readers that there are lots of reports, often contradictory, about each rehearsal. Bear in mind that some concepts take a little while longer to perfect than others – whether it’s Eric Saade smashing his glass box, or last year’s Estonian duo finding the right angles to tell their story. First efforts can be rough or ready, and much can change in the space of a week.
The only clips you’ll get of first rehearsals will be on Eurovision.tv, before the fan press moves in to film second rehearsals onwards. The full schedule can be found here. Most of all, enjoy the next few weeks, and keep your thoughts coming below.
Best of luck Daniel, looking forward to the coverage.
I still think this year is incredibly open and have my eggs in a lot of baskets at the moment and couldn’t give a top three at this point.
Saying that I think the winner will be one of:
Russia
France
Malta
Latvia
Armenia
Serbia
Czech Republic
Netherlands
Not all of these will do well obviously or even make the top 10 (I even think Netherlands could nq), but these are the ones I feel have the legs to go all the way potentially.
Aha, someone finally matches my own picks without throwing in a wrongun’. Although I think your bottom 3 can only challenge the top 10 spots.
I think the staging will make or break Armenia, France and Malta especially.
Such a tricky year. I’m itching to do my top 10 bets but need the rehearsal shakedown first!
Glad are safely and securely installed Daniel! This IS an open year as you say and we’ll be poring over your interpretations and analysis even more than ever. I have a hunch about Latvia/Australia/Serbia…..we’ll see. I’d LOVE The Netherlands and Cyprus to do well and make the top ten…..but as we all know, subjective desire can lead one wildly astray at the bookies. Bring it on.
Thanks Daniel! Some good news from my end as well… Eurovision Wipe 2016 is finished and is rendering and uploading as I type. If you feel like staying up a little bit late, keep an eye out for the launch! Quite proud of this one.
Looking forward to it 🙂
Here it is! Worked really hard on this so appreciate anything you can do to get the word out! Please also subscribe to my Youtube channel youtube.com/bencg if you want to see more from me! Thanks to escxtra for sponsoring me this year!
http://escxtra.com/2016/05/01/ben-cgs-eurovision-wipe-is-back-prepared-for-2016/
This is great 😀 loved the Russian march!
Ben…that was a fab watch!! Great intercutting, facial expressions and, as noted, dance sychronicity with the Russian army.
I did enjoy that. Thanks Ben.
Cheers Ben! The wipe never disappoints me. Your take on Armenia was priceless.
Superb! The Sweden “Pretty Lights” and the wolf watching Ivan had me in stitches.
Very entertaining. Way better than T Wogan or G Norton.
Thank you so much everyone!
Hey Daniel. Please note that Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS usually has entrance to the first rehearsals too. So you can also find rehearsal videos from for instance Netherlands tomorrow at http://www.songfestival.nl . Including a few ‘elite’ other national broadcasters. So it’s not true that you’ll find the videos from the first sets of rehearsals on http://www.eurovision.tv
So it’s not true that you’ll ‘only’ find the videos from the first sets of rehearsals on http://www.eurovision.tv
The rehearsal reports tells us Croatia can be discounted from the win market. How bad is it exactly?
And here we go, Amir passing Sergey at Betfair.
Strange, from the descriptions I’ve read it seems to be precisely what Russia needs to be doing. I don’t get what people were expecting.
any idea why latvia is drifting out today?
Maybe it’s because the music video indicates they will use similar presentation and attire as in the NF?
Just chanel flicking and stumbled across Frans on Viva. Still don’t rate it but it was a surprise to see a Eurovision entry on a music station pre contest.
Re-post but certainly divides opinion. To the judge that thinks it should be “If I was sorry” please look up the use of the subjunctive in English. The judge is English which reminds me of what I love about England.
http://nyx.meccahosting.com/~a0008499/ESC16-SechukJury-SE.htm
You’re right and he’s wrong but oddly the indicative now is mainly used for all. So the subjunctive is now redundant in English although still grammatically valid.
Where are you from Chris?