EuroBlog Round-up (27th November)

by Steve Holyer 150 views

Eurovision season is open. At last that's what many of the Eurovision weblogs claim. With no official “season” determined by the Eurovision Broadcasting Union the Eurovision Song Contest blogs are all left to there own devices to read the signs that point to the beginning of the so-called Eurovision season. This week's telling signs that Eurovision season is indeed upon us include: the announcement of ticket sales for the contest itself in Helsinki, conflicting news about artist selection, and – perhaps the biggest sign of all – Angela Agurbash of Belarus is back with a song that just may already be disqualified.

A CRUCIAL DAY FOR US
Last Monday the Finnish broadcaster YLE announced most of the details for the ticket sales to the Eurovision Song Contest performances and dress rehearsals. The Eurovision blogosphere remained pretty silent on that subject unless it was to repost details of sales which esctoday.com reported here. There were grumbles here and there about the unavailability of Internet sales during the first two days sales which begin December 10. Some bloggers were surprised and frustrated by the pricing and organization of the package deals which are more expensive than buying the tickets individually and don't offer the chance to see both the semi-final and the final in one package.

But the fans' concerns might best be summed up by Zohar Rashit's oft repeated mantra in esctoday.com's reactions section “Here we go again. This is the worst day of the Eurovision fan's year: 'Help me, I can't get online or this year, through on the telephone ', “Does anybody know what is happening?”, … 'Did anybody get past stage 3?', … 'HEEEEEEELP'. Hopefully YLE will prove Zohar wrong when he says, “This ain't gonna be fun people.