Rather than a detailed review of this year’s Grand Finalists, John Egan offers a list of things to look for in the Grand Final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Pace Yourself

This year’s Grand Final will feature twenty-seven entries, the longest ever final (although we have endured one 28-strong semi-final in the past). Il Volo’s Grande Amore (Italy) will finish their performance around 23h20 (CET). That’s over two hours after the show opens. After that we have voting (15 minutes), the interval entertainment whilst votes are tabulated, and then a result.

The rehearsal closed in at 3 hours 48 minutes, but we reckon there’s at least three minutes of over-run in the voting, and a ‘spare’ song was rehearsed in case the scrutineering takes a bit longer than expected, so 3 hours 40 minutes is our estimate. Last year’s show ran 3 hours 34 minutes. Plan accordingly!

Remember ‘Escape From Eurovision Island’? (picture: Debbie O’Hare)

Last In First Out

A couple of years ago we explained how the top three results in the televoting era have been skewed towards the last group of performers. In 2013 seven of the ten were from the second half, including all of the top three. Last year the top 10 was an even split between the first and second halves of the draw and only one of the top three came late in the performance order.

We haven’t yet had a year where more of the top 10 came from the first half. Last year we had only the second winner in the semi-final era who performed in the first half of the draw. Generally the last songs performed have done better… with one important qualification. In a 24 or 25 song Grand Final performing last has often been rewarded with a good result, though not a win. Of the two years with 26 songs in the Saturday night show last in has meant disappointment.

We have three heavy hitters in slots 24 (Azerbaijan), 25 (Russia), and 27 (Italy). The first two are probably very happy; let’s see if Italy can buck the trend.

Purposeful, Effective Gimmickry

In the Moscow 2010 Contest, Romania’s Paula Selling & Ovi managed to improve on their placing from the semi-final (4th out of 17) and the Grand Final (3rd of 25). Playing With Fire’s average score dropped from 7 to 4, but their placing improved. Both performances featured their conjoined, flaming pianos. A gimmick, but one that aligns perfectly with the song title.

Source: YouTube, EBU/Eurovision.tv

Why? Probably because during the song recaps, voters went “right! Playing with Fire!” and got out their mobiles. Not all gimmicks are created equal, but if they suit the song, they can be very effective.

Playing To The Audience That Matters

Every semi-final qualifier needs to resonate with the television viewer, be they the general public or the professional juries. You can tell which artists understand this, versus those who are “giggers”: musicians whose performing experience—or preference—is live audiences. Like Tom Dice, in his Grand Final performance, in 2010:

Source: YouTube EBU/Eurovision.tv

In the semi-final, Tom kept his focus on the camera and won the semi-final. In the Grand Final he got caught up in the arena and ended up sixth. More interestingly, he scored 20 more points in the 17 voting country semi-final than in the 39 voting country Grand Final

Pay attention to which acts seem to get caught up in the huge energy of the live arena, versus those who stay focused on the camera.

Death By Camera

However, sometimes  a strong entry is derailed by too many camera changes. Sometimes referred to as Melodifestivalen Syndrome, artists who fixate on “finding” every camera change often come across as robotic, which could be the difference between finishing 5th and 25th. You need to connect with the viewers, but warmly.  This is also known as “doing a Perrelli”:

Source: YouTube louitton

Every time the camera moves, Charlotte turns to it and the net effect is unintentionally hilarious. In this instance a fan favourite only managed the ignominy of missing the Grand Final because of a jury ‘save’.

Intimate Songs, Intimate Staging

This year’s Grand Final has a handful of up-tempo entries, lots of mid-tempo songs and more than a few ballads. For a ballad to work the artist needs to make it feel like he is singing to you at home.. Or they need to perform in way that makes you feel a great deal of empathy for the profound feeling they are trying to convey. In other words: intimate songs must create a sense of intimacy between the artist and the viewer. Like Lisa Andreas did rather effectively back in 2004:

Source: YouTube EBU/Eurovision.tv

Nailing that connection with the audience can inspire viewers to pick up their phones and jurors to move you up the list. And it sometimes can compensate up if you’re not note-perfect.

The Punters’s Favourites

Even though the betting public represent a purposeful sample, they are invested in the result—literally: people who put some resources into their predictions tend to take them more seriously. The punters’ money tends to shift as more data is available about each country’s entry.

Last year Austria and the Netherlands made a late charge in the betting tables after the rehearsals started. Russia’s leading that charge this year, followed by Belgium and Latvia. The songs that lead for much of the Eurovision season—, Sweden, Italy and Estonia this year—also tend to do well in the Grand Final. Here’s a handy site to check current odds, though it is structured for those who understand gambling and odds. In simplest terms, being at the top of the list is better.

The Downloaded

The bookies are one good data source, but it’s a narrow pool. Any sort of broader sample would have more predictive value. One of the best ones is the download music market across the Eurovision voting area.

Our friends at ESCTracker.com rather handily aggregate where this year’s current entries are ranked across the individual national iTunes music stores in the European Broadcasting Area.  The data here update dynamically, a good rule of thumb is to see who is placed in the most top 50 chart rankings. Things are looking good, Sweden, Belgium, Estonia and Russia, in other words!

You’ll also find info on YouTube views for each entry. Since some represent 6 months of availability and others mere weeks, it’s much harder to discern any entry’s currency from YouTube views alone.   Il Volo entered their song in Italy’s high profile San Remo song festival–and won. Grande Amore has been in the Italian charts ever since. That alone got them millions of YouTube views.

5 + 2

Aside from our big five cheque writers—Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom—we have hosts Austria and special guest Australia. Hence (Big) 5 + 2. Unlike 20 other songs that qualified for the Grand Final, the 5 + 2 start off with no sense of how well their performance will resonate with televoters or juries.

Since the semi-finals were introduced in 2004 we have had only two winners that were not qualifiers from a semi-final (Greece 2005 and Germany 2010).

Source: YouTube EBU/Eurovision.tv

The qualifiers get more run-throughs of their performances in dress rehearsal (good) but are more likely to experience vocal strain (bad).  Our qualifiers from Thursday night’s semi-final get zero rest: their Grand Final dress rehearsals start the next day; the Tuesday night folks get two days for vocal rest if they wish. Sometimes it shows

The Title Swaps

We have two songs that started out with different titles in this year’s Contest, albeit for very different reasons. Both have qualified for Saturday night.

Armenia’s original title was Don’t Deny. 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the death of over one million Armenians. The Armenian delegation, after being reminded about not including political messages, changed Genealogy’s song title to Face the Shadows. This won’t prevent the commentators or press from highlighting the change…or take away from their preview video, which is a very slick way of using metaphor (persons disappearing from old family photos) to represent this tragedy.

Slovenia’s title change is less charged but probably just as significant. Here for You was originally entitled Down Low. Thankfully someone must have explained to them that “down low” is a colloquialism for (ostensibly) heterosexual men who are secretly gay. To Maraaya’s credit, they have included the title change in their excellent marketing materials here in Vienna. Except for explaining why they changed it. ‘Nuff said.

Creating A Moment

One way of winning the Eurovision Song Contest is the most reliable. It’s not about having the best song or being the best singer. If you managed to create the moment of the night.  Not all winners do this, but the list who have is long: Katrina and the Waves, Nicole, the Olsen Brothers, and Loreen all did.

Conchita’s performances—both of them—from 2014 are the gold standard of moment creation:

Source: YouTube EBU/Eurovision.tv

If one of our finalists manages to create an iconic Eurovision moment, the trophy will be theirs.