Eurovision 2012 - 22/24/26 May 2012

If the UK won, there'd be an inevitable requirement for tax changes to facilitate the event, as occurred for the recent UEFA CL final, and will be needed for next years as well. The ESC sponsorship elements could be tacked on to any tax exemptions needed.

Im thinking from the royal albert hall lol

I would probably say somewhere like the ExCeL Centre in London- it's large enough to put arena style seating in, and I imagine it would be easier and cheaper than a normal arena/stadium to use for a longer period of time.

The BBC have confirmed that should they win the event would take place at Scarborough's Open Air Theatre, and the show would be presented by Brian Blessed, Peter Simon, and Clare Balding. Graham Norton would still be commentating.

If we're talking about winning, I'd like to see it go "north of the border" to "The Hydro" in Glagow (if it's finished on time!). Thinking about it though, it's probably Belfast's turn and The Odyssey

Running total so far is...

London - Royal Festivall Hall 1960
London - BBC Television Centre 1963
London - Royal Albert Hall 1968
Edinburgh - Usher Hall 1972
Brighton - Brighton Dome 1974 **** ABBA!!! ****
London - Wembley Conference Centre 1977
Harrogate - Harrogate International Centre 1982
Birmingham - National Indoor Arena 1998

C'mon Engelbert!!!

I really don't think we need to worry about the UK winning.

Any thoughts though on where the contest might go if the winner says thanks but no thanks. Would the EBU open it up to a bidding process or just go down the leaderboard until somebody says yes?

Last place hosts it next year!

Yesterday evening I enjoyed the second semi-final, and put a full recap on my blog.

My desired qualifiers: Serbia , F.Y.R. Macedonia , The Netherlands, Malta , Lithuania , plus five of: Belarus, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden , Estonia , Bosnia & Herzegovina .

Actual qualifiers (in order of announcement): Lithuania , Bosnia & Herzegovina , Serbia , Ukraine, Sweden , F.Y.R. Macedonia , Norway, Estonia , Malta , Turkey.

Bold entries represent the actual qualifiers that match my preferences.

OUT: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, The Netherlands.

I'm gutted The Netherlands didn't qualify because I thought they had a really good entry, I voted for them, IMO the best Dutch entry for years.  I'm disappointed Portugal, Belarus and Slovenia are out as I quite liked their live performances last night.  I'm disgusted that Norway qualified as their song is one of the four songs I disliked the most last night, and didn't want in the final.  The Netherlands deserved the place Norway took.  I'd rather Ukraine and Turkey hadn't qualified.  Portugal plus either Belarus or Slovenia deserved the places Ukraine and Turkey took.  Thank goodness Serbia and Malta are through as both were excellent songs which I most wanted to qualify.  Also I'm pleased to see F.Y.R. Macedonia and Lithuania through as, despite my preview experience of them, I quite liked their live performances yesterday evening.  I'm extremely overjoyed that Bulgaria, Georgia and Slovakia failed to qualify as they were exceptionally bad.

So how will tonight's ten qualifiers fare in Saturday's final?  Bear in mind they are up against the ten qualifiers from Tuesday night,and the six directly qualified countries: hosts Azerbaijan plus Big Five.  All will be revealed tomorrow night.

Where was it held in 1998 when we won in 1997? Was it TC1 at TVC?

National Indoor Arena, Birmingham.

Ah but it's the BBC, they'd do what they do with everything and stick it at Salford.

Not that it's something to really be concerned by.

Every time I hear of that Arena, it makes me remember the good old days of Gladiators!