The City of Rotterdam has decided to opt for a virtual Eurovision Village instead of the traditional one as has been the case in recent years due to the COVID 19 global pandemic.

The Eurovision Village, the annual meeting place for Eurovision fans, will be completely built online this year. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic crisis the Eurovision Village will not be able to receive public. The decision to scrap the Eurovision Village with public was scrapped during a Rotterdam City Council meeting.

The Rotterdam City Council said:

We had to decide to scrap the possibility with the public.

The Eurovision Village would have been located in Rotterdam’s iconic  Binnenrotte. According to the Rotterdam project director Alice Flanders, an attempt had been made to turn the Eurovision Village into a Field lab experiment, but this has not been successful.

A trial with Testing for Access, as they now run in various museums, theaters and music venues, was also not possible.

Alice Flanders (Rotterdam Projec Manager) says.

And because the roadmap does not yet provide for an event at the time of the Eurovision Song Contest, we had to decide yesterday to cancel the possibility with the public.

The Eurovision Village is normally an important part of the Eurovision Song Contest. There are annual performances by (former) candidates and the Semifinals and Grand Final are usually also broadcast on a big screen.

In 2019 Tel Aviv had set up a Eurovision Village on the beach. At the time, about 25,000 people could go there at the same time.

An online program is now offered as an alternative. It must become a “high-quality, virtual and interactive 3D world” in which parts of Rotterdam can be seen. The municipality hopes to attract 1 million virtual visitors.

The 2021 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 18, 20 and 22 May at the Rotterdam Ahoy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Source: rtlboulevard.nl/ESCToday