ESC United - Rehearsal and Live Show discussion megathread

[Sean]

It's time for the rehearsals to finally get underway for Eurovision 2024 at Malmö Arena! 37 countries will begin their preparations for this year's contest today, with over two weeks of coverage to come from the ESC United team on the ground!

The schedule for rehearsals is below (thank you Eurovisionworld! All times in CEST);

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You can check out Matt's pre-rehearsal live stream below in case you missed it;

DAY ONE

Eurovision 2024 Rehearsals - Day 1 Round-Up Live Stream

Join Matt and his team as they discuss the rehearsals of the day and answer your questions. The first dress rehearsal is closed to the press so we'll be here...

www.youtube.com

The team will be on hand to cover everything going on in Malmö over the coming weeks, so make sure to follow ESC United on Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, and YouTube and Twitch to not miss a minute!

Please also use this thread for any rehearsal coverage and discussion, including for jury shows, dress rehearsals and the live shows!​

 

[nudiecrudi]

Well in norwegian press Croatia and Ukraine is top 2 where people have voted. Both much higher than the rest. 7,9 and 7,7

After that Luxembourg, Finland and Cyprus in top 5. 6,3 6,1 and 5,9

The rest
Lithuania 6 (5,9) points
Poland 7 (5,8) points
Ireland 8 8 (5,5) points
Moldova 9
Azerbaijan 10
Australia 11
Iceland 12 ( very bad score for Iceland)
Portugal 13
Slovenia 14
Serbia 15

But from Ireland on 8 and Serbia on 15 is only 0,6 points.

So maybe this tell us that Croatia and Ukraine did it really good in Nordic country. Luxembourg, Ireland, Cyprus and Finland could also do it good in Sweden, Finland and Iceland.

The italian press rewiews work a little bit different.
All the main newspapers have journalists and experts in the music field. These journalists write articles about various music activities, albums, new songs, concerts, new artists ect.
Usually these journalists give their impressions about some importants events ( SanRemo, ESC ect ) by giving voted from 1-10.
The public isn't involved in these impressions and opinions.

 

[4815162342]

Btw Australia had been 6th in the audience poll only 34 votes behind Ukraine.

Last year in audience poll for the final Belgium was 3rd, Austria 5th, Australia 6th, France 7th, UK 8th (it was in the UK though), Spain 10th.
On the other hand Italy was 13th with only 8 votes more than the 18th. Ukraine was 16th.

 

[Mainshow]

, btw, is the only country not qualifying from the first half of the semi final.

 

[Looren]

, btw, is the only country not qualifying from the first half of the semi final.

Kind of an unlucky draw, the first half was stacked and clearly there was one song that was going to get lost in there

I'm happy that song wasn't Serbia

 

[Realest]

My good Friend Christer said that there are 6 Contenders ( is one of them) and that he will make sure, all of them will get a good RO.

« La France est l’un des pays que je vois gagner l’Eurovision 2024 »

Le Suédois Christer Björkman est le producteur de l'Eurovision 2024. Alors que la première demi-final se tien se mardi à Malmö, il a accordé un entretien à « 20 Minutes » pour expliquer ses missions et livrer ses prédictions...

www.20minutes.fr

 

[Bench]

My good Friend Christer said that there are 6 Contenders ( is one of them) and that he will make sure, all of them will get a good RO.

« La France est l’un des pays que je vois gagner l’Eurovision 2024 »

Le Suédois Christer Björkman est le producteur de l'Eurovision 2024. Alors que la première demi-final se tien se mardi à Malmö, il a accordé un entretien à « 20 Minutes » pour expliquer ses missions et livrer ses prédictions...

www.20minutes.fr

Does he mention the other 5? Probably ?

 

[empo21]

My good Friend Christer said that there are 6 Contenders ( is one of them) and that he will make sure, all of them will get a good RO.

« La France est l’un des pays que je vois gagner l’Eurovision 2024 »

Le Suédois Christer Björkman est le producteur de l'Eurovision 2024. Alors que la première demi-final se tien se mardi à Malmö, il a accordé un entretien à « 20 Minutes » pour expliquer ses missions et livrer ses prédictions...

www.20minutes.fr

Tell your good friend to be fr

Isn't that just rigging? He's straight up admiting that the producers choice is so favourites can have nice draw

 

[BorisBubbles]

Yeah the above article is a very good reason to go back to random draws tbh. One person is basically hand-picking the r/o for the favourites to that it benefits them, leaving anyone else in the dust. That does not feel right.

 

[ESC Athens]

Yeah the above article is a very good reason to go back to random draws tbh. One person is basically hand-picking the r/o for the favourites to that it benefits them, leaving anyone else in the dust. That does not feel right.

And that's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[nudiecrudi]

My good Friend Christer said that there are 6 Contenders ( is one of them) and that he will make sure, all of them will get a good RO.

« La France est l’un des pays que je vois gagner l’Eurovision 2024 »

Le Suédois Christer Björkman est le producteur de l'Eurovision 2024. Alors que la première demi-final se tien se mardi à Malmö, il a accordé un entretien à « 20 Minutes » pour expliquer ses missions et livrer ses prédictions...

www.20minutes.fr

He invented the hot water. The odds and the over-all sentiment are saying that France is amongst the possible ones, as other 6-7 countries.

 

[Grinch]

Do you think Slimane can win Eurovision this year?

Yes of course. France is one of the six countries I imagine winning.

What will make the difference?​

There are six countries that have the song, the artist and the painting that goes with it. This will depend on the performance on the day. The order of appearance will have no influence on that, because I will position them so that everyone can shine.

He says he thinks there are 6 contenders for the victory and he will position them according to his taste and let the rest of the songs eat dust.

If Björkman has no haters, I'm dead.
If Österdahl has no haters, I'm dead.

 

[HayashiM]

Shouldn't those people at least try to appear impartial? I have no illusions Chris' opinions on everyone's chances don't influence how he decides the running order, as that's impossible to avoid even with a 100% honest approach, however... Should he be publicly sharing pre-contest who he personally thinks can win?

He absolutely should not.

 

[EscGeek]

I saw some video where Bjorkman explained in his own words why it's a good idea to have a pre-determined running order. He was obviously talking bullshit that i can't agree with but his persuasion skills are impressive. Let's just be thankful that he's not a used car salesman or a politician and that he's using his talent for a fun tv show

 

[b4ld3r]

Safe to say Saade is winning the PR war, all the headlines here are dominated by him the day after.

 

[BorisBubbles]

My good Friend Christer said

Christer does not know you exist.

Not being mean, just factual. -- Courtney Act

 

[BorisBubbles]

Safe to say Saade is winning the PR war, all the headlines here are dominated by him the day after.

People are so stupid about this.

ERIC SAADE IS PALESTINIAN.

What did you fucking expect? SVT invited him specifically for it, and he agreed to do it specifically so that he wouldn't be silenced.

BE HAPPY IT WAS JUST A KEFFIYEH AROUND HIS WRIST AND NOTHING MORE.

Where WERE those people when Oleh shouted Mariupol and Systur plastered trans and ukrainian flags all over their guitars. Nobody gave a fuck then, and they shouldn't start now.

All these Expression of Disappointment just underscore how powerless the EBU is. Which is only going to make it escalate further.

 

[HayashiM]

Honestly, that's one of the most interesting articles I have read about Eurovision in ages, as it goes directly to the source. I very much recommend reading it.

The most interesting points for me:
(about creating the running order): "I do not have access to the semi-final results. Martin Österdahl has them. If I ever mess up in the order I'm proposing, he can tell me "this song there, maybe you should put it elsewhere". And there, I know that this means that the song had a result that I had not envisaged."
So in theory, Chris has no idea of the results when creating the running order - but Martin can override him - for songs Martin wants to.

(about the change with voting starting immediately): "I believe this will give a fairer result, mainly for those who pass near the beginning. We know that they are more quickly forgotten when there are so many candidates."
So - even the producers themselves believe a later running order is beneficial. Can everyone thinking the running order doesn't matter let that sink in, please?

 

[martin]

Yeah the above article is a very good reason to go back to random draws tbh. One person is basically hand-picking the r/o for the favourites to that it benefits them, leaving anyone else in the dust. That does not feel right.

Yeah this is what i don,t like at all with Eurovision. Some few people get well too much power to decide things. We don,t need more power to producenter and Christer. We need this to be more fair. Don,t be surprice at all if Serbia and Slovenia get bad startnumber and some of Christer favorites gets better startnumber. Thank god Sweden needs to draw a number this year.

 

[Looren]

I think this all shows that the fairest way of dealing with this is a random running order

 

[Mainshow]

People are so stupid about this.

ERIC SAADE IS PALESTINIAN.

What did you fucking expect? SVT invited him specifically for it, and he agreed to do it specifically so that he wouldn't be silenced.

BE HAPPY IT WAS JUST A KEFFIYEH AROUND HIS WRIST AND NOTHING MORE.

Where WERE those people when Oleh shouted Mariupol and Systur plastered trans and ukrainian flags all over their guitars. Nobody gave a fuck then, and they shouldn't start now.

All these Expression of Disappointment just underscore how powerless the EBU is. Which is only going to make it escalate further.

That's not true... there were fans demanding the EBU to disqualify Ukraine for saying that after their performance.
Even on this forum.

Eric Saade's protest will be treated the same - maybe the SVT has to pay a fine since it's a "political" symbol but dunno.

The fans don't really care about it if you ask me.. it's the nonsense media for the straight folks which massively pick it up.