I thoroughly enjoyed the first semi-final last night. Not many text messages during the broadcast (thank you!), but lots of discussion via social media. Lots of positive feedback about how great it looked on the telly. Live television takes a lot of preparation, with each country rehearsing their song over two twenty minute slots during the first week of rehearsals. After that, as you will appreciate from earlier posts, there is the first dress rehearsal, followed by the Jury Final, and – on the afternoon of the semi-final – one further dress rehearsal. Got that? Good.
It’s no wonder then that the camera angles and vision mixing are all spot on. All the artists last night (as far as I could tell in the arena) did a great job. Here are some pics I took last night (Tuesday)…
I hope you enjoyed the opening, with the kids and Loreen, and that your favourite songs made it through. It looks like Brian and I got 7/10 – not bad I guess! The big news was that four Balkan countries got the elbow, and this will undoubtedly be the cause of some consternation in those territories. Indeed, there is already word that Slovenia may take a hissy-fit and not compete next year. That said, countries threaten this every year when they face what they perceive as the indignity of not progressing to the final. Emotions run high as you can imagine, as a lot of time and effort is put into the participation of all countries.
I had a ball – hope you did too! It was a late night for me. By the time I got back to the hotel it was midnight. A small nightcap before bed, followed by a timed run-through of my conference paper, saw me turn out the light at just after 2am. For a 7am start I struggled to sleep, but it was a great second day here in Malmö.