Eurovision Song Contest 2023

castletownman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595009#Comment_120595009

What about Israel then? Who aren't even in Europe.

squonk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595234#Comment_120595234

Louis stopped being relevant 10 years ago. I’m old enough to remember Bucks Fizz winning. I wouldn’t venture an answer if I was asked what we should be doing. Even I know I’m out of touch now. The people we should be asking are those in the 15-30 age group. They’re the ones who largely perform and also vote I’d say. I know that resulted in Wild Youth this year but nothing is perfect!

Welsh Megaman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595256#Comment_120595256

Belgium for me! :)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595256#Comment_120595256

France for me.

Richard Hillman

Louis Walsh should be nowhere near Eurovision selection. His acts never did well outside of English speaking markets and were mostly cover versions.

Linda Martin is also completely out of. She just sang the song. It was the song that won.

The Late Late Show is not an appropriate place to select the song. It has failed year after year. It caters for a certain market. Older audience, rural, likes being told what to think, probably likes GAA and country music.

There's nothing wrong with going for the older vote, everyone's votes count the same but if they are going for younger songs, they have to be made by younger people. Not 40 year olds in Hoodies, saying they are down with the kids.

I look at the top 10 and think the majority of those songs probably wouldn't have even made it out of selection. Nobody in Ireland would above came up with Finland's song. Loreen would have looked dreadful on the Late Late Show stage.

The system is inadequate.

Marty Whelan wasn't helping either. He was locked on Bailey's last night. His Twitter stream was full of him and Bailey's during it. He was constantly trying to allude to block voting. Probably to cover RTEs arse. RTE are constantly trying to allude to block voting, just to cover themselves.

Department of Culture needs to get involved, although I'd fear they'd get bogged down with box ticking and lobbyists. You win the competition to show off your country. It's about tourism, trade, your nation's public image. It is of national importance.

If you are a young European and look at Ireland constantly failing, you'd believe we are cultureless like the UK. There's probably an air of truth to it.

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120594638#Comment_120594638

Your right of course but never underestimate the stupidity of other

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120594586#Comment_120594586

No because there were 2 rounds of votes and both added together at the end as people knew. Its not some evil plot. It worked as it was designed to

Welsh Megaman

Watching the fan village being dismantled on the BBC News Channel right now.

Can’t they keep the stage there as a permanent reminder?

:(

Star Bingo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595379#Comment_120595379

BTS are bigger than the Beatles. Who were of course bigger than Jesus if he thinks Westlife were a big deal he’s no clue

TheBigEvil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595379#Comment_120595379

Spot on. If we want to be serious about competing at Eurovision again it needs to be removed from RTE. I saw a program on BBC yesterday and they were looking at how other countries pick their song, and saw Sweden. Their contest is a national vote that whittles the hopefuls down to a set few, and they then sing in arena with over 20,000 fans watching live and the the entire country votes for their entry. We need to put in a serious set of entries over the next few years to show Europe we want it.

Its not just about the song itself, its the right people for the song, the performance, the set design, the clothing, the lighting. Every minute detail needs to be looked and planned properly. We do none of that, we get a few acts to perform on the late late, and vote on what we think

Look at how some of the acts last night used the stage, the lighting, props etc. We had a guy in a gold jumpsuit walk down some stairs. While our song was never a contender, it was catchy enough to get out to that semi-final. How Croatia and Serbia came out of it and we didn't says everything.

We need to go balls out on either a seriously catchy "ear worm" type song, a big ballad or a stonking rock performance. But ffs look at everything to do with what we are putting on show, and we shouldn't be afraid to throw in the odd bit of irish music culture into from now and again, but done right. Other countries are not afraid to so why should we.

I thought Australia were short changed by with the voting. Their song was better than the votes it got, never a winner, but catchy enough.

And yea, it was Finland for me, and the crowd knew it too. Weird and catchy.

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120594624#Comment_120594624

I think he is smart enough to know that its not his audience, he would just look like an old man trying to gatecrash a youngsters party. He would have been totally out of place, maybe in the old eurovision days of the 80s and 90s when he was younger and the eurovision wasn't this crazy extravaganza.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595549#Comment_120595549

Croatia qualified over us due to the nature of their entry - basically F**k Off Putin. We wouldn't have the balls for the likes of that.

TheBigEvil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595579#Comment_120595579

It was still a big old bag of Sh1t

Welsh Megaman

Last night’s greatest moment… :D

https://youtu.be/SZMZAJjciTg

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595582#Comment_120595582

It was... a spectacle/ theatre of sorts and ours wasn't.

TheBigEvil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595583#Comment_120595583

Absolutely !!

Indestructable

Pretty big backlash against the Swedish win on YouTube anyway. The final performance has 100k dislikes vs 50k likes, and some pretty bad comments too.

Finland has 76k likes vs 4.4k dislikes fwiw.

Sweden aren't the darlings of Eurovision anymore it seems!

TheBigEvil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595598#Comment_120595598

True, that it was and yea ours had no performance level at all

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595549#Comment_120595549

Croatia got through because their song was ripping into Putin. Serbia were at least different where as or song is very bland.

I knew more about the Croatia song going into this than I did the Irish one.

martingriff

I wonder how many are ripping at the jury votes as there song lost, were complaining at the public votes last year as it was all just a solidarity vote

AndyBoBandy

1 thing that was interesting was at the start of the show, they showed the all time leaderboard with Ireland in 1st place and Sweden just the 1 win behind us…. I can’t ever remember seeing that at any other Eurovision!?

makes sense that they’d want to let everyone know that a Swedish win would take them to joint top in the all time wins list… and at that point they’d have probably already known that Sweden was by far and away the winner as per the jury show the previous night….. even though the jury votes were only officially announced during the live televised final…..

Seems like Sweden won the final before a ball was even kicked!!

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595813#Comment_120595813

Please go away with this stupid conspiracy stuff

When there was exclusively a fan vote, people blame block voting. When the jury vote is added, people now say that the jury did all they could to give Sweden the win

Eurovision can’t win in that sense

zell12

A minimum of ~€350k per year we spend on it. Is it worth it?

https://esctoday.com/168021/ireland-rte-reveals-breakdown-of-eurovision-2018-costs/

https://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/thats-rich-rte-splashed-out-27650436

pnott

The bizarre showing of which countries won the most gave me the impression that they were saying that Sweden would match Ireland's record of 7 wins, Sweden running away with the jury vote so much so that it made is very difficult for her to be beaten and then the host saying when she won that next year is ABBA's 50th anniversary which coincides with Sweden hosting. To me that sounds like the narrative from before the contest even started was Sweden was going to win and I think the huge difference between the jury votes and the public makes it look like the juries may have been influenced in some way to ensure Sweden's win especially in the face of what turned out to be a huge public vote for Finland.

squonk

I’m inclined to agree. There was massive public attention when ABBA came back last year. I hade a feeling Eurovision want in on that given they gave ABBA their big break. The competition is just beginning to eat itself I think too with looking back at previous dinners and also wheeling on cameos from previous winners. Having all 4 ABBA members KN stage for the 50th anniversary of their Eurovision win in Stockholm and at Eurovision is crazy good publicity. After sleeping on it I can’t see how prospects like this weren’t talked up around the juries. It’s like a well written script and a great bow out finally for ABBA. Back where they started 50 years on having come from obscurity to conquer the world and it’s all come full circle for a glorious final appearance. If you’re opening up voting to tge wider works, there’s no better platform than that to tell everyone everywhere you’ve arrived. It’s just a pity the winning song didn’t line up to tge potential. Sweden are good at Eurovision and have a hugely successful music and production industry in general but they really sent a mid table entry this year.

patob

I see the BBC are getting a lot of kudos for the production but I thought the sound quality was poor for a lot of the tracks including the UK.

Snake Plisken

Can't even remember the Finnish song just some lad with green nails breaking out of a box.

Swedish song was the best song, so much so that I voted for it, Jurys thought it was great and a large amount of the public vote. It's a song contest and the best song won!

Richard Hillman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120595939#Comment_120595939

My opinion is Yes. It is of nation pride. Not everything needs a payback.

glitterIsland

There were a few good songs from last night.

- Switzerland

- Belgium

- Norway

What I don't get is that the juries is supposed to be all spaced out amongst the different countries yet the majority of the jury's gave Sweden their 12 points. Not all of the jurys.

I think the 12 points allocation should have been more varied and spaced out amongst more countries. I mean like Sweden wasn't all that different or spectacular either.

Shakyfan

Are they still pretending this is a song contest? It's been a sexuality contest for years now!