Eurovision 2010 - 25/27/29 May 2010 - Norway

Oslo / Fornebu / Hamar

NRK Norway have confirmed that they will host the contest next year and provisional dates have been announced. Three venues only one of which is centrally located in Oslo have been proposed, all of which have a minimum capacity of 10,000 spectators.

The three potential venues are

Telenor Arena Fornebu - to the west of Oslo - around 30 minutes from the City Centre - A football stadium built along the lines of the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff with a full roof. The stadium opens this year.

Oslo Spektrum - Central Oslo.

Vikingskipet på Hamar - Built for the Skating Championships of the Lillehammar Winter Olympics of 1994.

I'd suggest that the Spektrum has to be favourite.

A poll at http://www.nrk.no/programmer/tv/melodi_grand_prix/1.6613330 list them, but most are voting for the newly constructed Telenor Arena.

Spektrum seemed to be a perfectly good size in 1996, no reason why not again.

I do worry slightly when I hear mention of football stadia though - wasn't Parken in Copenhagen just TOO big for most to see or hear much adequately?

Polish is he?

Or could you possibly mean poll?

Sorry I was meant to put Belarussian.
But yes, I actually I got mixed up and did mean poll.

Ah, but the Telenor Arena is a different kettle of fish. For starters, its built as an indoor venue, the roof is fixed etc. Also, it only has a maximum capacity of 23,000 for concerts, which will most likely be reduced to maybe 18/20,000 for Eurovision with all the extra stuff taking up so much space. So the capacity will be probably be roughly the same as we have seen in 2008 and 09.

The Spektrum hosts their national finals for Eurovision, but I think it's a bit small in this current Eurovision era of massive arenas. Time will tell I guess.

Blimey, they didn't hang around

Meanwhile, in Scotland:

http://www.snp.org/node/15304


This all despite the fact Scotland doesn't have its own national broadcaster, and as such cannot have its own membership of EBU-UER. Still, best not let logic get in the way of a bit of populist puffery, eh?!

Wales on the other hand....

The Hamar site is also too small for a contemporary EV event, I was there for the Olympics and don't recall it being all that large ?

If I'm right, it hosted the Junior equivalent a few years back - but then that's not on the same scale.

That was the Håkons Hall.

There does seem to have been a shift over the last couple of years towards stadia hosting the event, so I'd agree that option is probably the favourite.

I think should the UK win over the next few years the Millennium Stadium would be in with a shot of hosting it, but the only problem would be it's timing in May is bound to clash with some sort of rugby final, as I imagine the stadium would be out of action for a good month to accommodate such an event. The other obvious choice would be the O2 IMO, but I suspect the BBC would prefer it out of London to tick a few boxes.