The ESC Insight newsletter is back once more updating you on the happenings in Eurovision world. The ESC Insight team themselves were on the ground in Estonian and Latvia checking out the winners from their National Finals. Click onto this link for the full review of the news.
The newsletter also features the opinion’s of our editor Ben Robertson in his Robertson’s Reflection section. This week he attempts to give you a fly-on-the-wall perspective as to what life is like travelling as press to National Finals.
Being a fly-on-the-wall though for the fun before and after the show as well was fun. Remember that the smaller nature of the Baltic states means that hiring our a basketball or ice hockey arena for a national final makes no economic sense, so usually concert halls and TV studios are likely venues. This results in press areas that are shoved in whatever space they could find, usually an awkwardly laid-out side room which provide more than enough for our needs but are a world away from glossy Eurovision. It is more relaxed and more friendly and literally a curtain blocked off the press ‘centre’ from the Green Room where we could peek across at the ever-so-tempting nibbles on display.
We even all get invited upstairs afterwards to a cute little reception where everybody related to the show can mingle as freely as the wine was being poured and the nibbles replaced on the tables. I’d love to report on tales of debauchery but sadly we didn’t take up the offer to join in the Saturday night ‘afterpaartii’ to catch our not-to-early-but-early-enough buses across the border. In any case these all seemed perfectly respectable and the team got the chance to mingle with acts as you would expect without any headlines being made.
You can read the Eurovision views of Ben Robertson and the rest of the newsletter each week from now until Vienna. Become one of our near 400 subscribers by clicking through this link and get the newsletter directly sent to your inbox. To view this week’s edition again just click here.