Eurovision 2015 - 60th Anniversary Edition

Yes. That has happened quite often in the past. Both Germany and Georgia have sent blind singers, with quite inspirational back stories. But viewers in the rest of Europe don't know that, and the commentators only have the post card to brief the audience. So you just end up thinking that they weren't very well choreographed...

Melodifestivalen has spoken...

http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=sweden_mans_zelmerloew_wins_melodifestivalen

Could be promising, Loreen with Euphoria got 268 points in a field of 10; Måns Zelmerlöw got 288 points in a field of 12, with 9 of the 11 international juries giving it 12 points.

It was the stand out winner though. Måns is incredibly popular - he's hosted MF and Allsång as well as entering MF twice before. The staging and the singer are arguably better than the song, and it will be interesting to see how they recreate the backing for the chorus with a total of 6 people (It has that kids chorus thing going on which is great, but probably not practical for Vienna)

Think it could do quite well in Vienna though - and Måns has a strong stage presence in a likeable way. And he can sing live!

Was very pleased Mariette did so well. Questions will be asked about the international juries again - particularly as Hasse did so well with the televoting and so badly with the juries, but I think the point of the juries is partly to "Save Sweden from itself"...

Was nice seeing Norway's MGP on the same night using a real orchestra for their backing tracks. Gave the show a lovely feel.

I liked the song and him until I read that he made homophobic comments on the Swedish equivalent of Come Dine With Me.

Most people across Europe won't know about that but it is indeed true. Hasn't really damaged his fame at home but he did have to do a lot of grovelling. He basically said it wasn't as natural as a man and woman. Not a great idea for a guy who has built much of his stardom on the 'pink pound'.

I can't imagine Mans comments making any difference to his standing in Eurovision. As said, it isn't a widely known about story.

Could it be something that Graham Norton might bring up on the night? It'll be interesting to see.

Does anyone else think for the 60th it would be fitting for the orchestra to return? I Noticed that Norway's national selection had a full orchestra- this could actually help our performance freeing up space for dancers on the stage- along with a checky nod to the past? Thoughts??? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FaODZOSptEk

I doubt it will be used for the entries since most of them are without orchestra anyway. BUT! I do think it should be used for the interval (if they mark the anniversary).

And along comes Guy Sebastian with Tonight Again for Australia...

The issue with a live orchestra would be if they don't perform to a totally nailed down click track with a definite start, which they hit bang on, all the timecode driven lighting and staging effects, and LED walls, projectors etc., would potentially be out of sync.

And if they used automatic vision mixing, as Denmark did last year, and Melodifestivalen has for the last two years, where all camera cuts are timecode driven (the vision mixer just sits there with an ME bank cut to air doing nothing...) that would be a real issue.

Though given that most tracks would have a heavy backing track even with an orchestra, I guess this may not be a huge problem? However it would be for a fully live performance, potentially. Imagine all the cuts being a beat out...

Norway managed it very well - but their staging wasn't effects heavy, and NRK have a history of live music production using beat and bar counting in the gallery (as shows like Strictly and X Factor in the UK do), where countries like Sweden and Denmark either second count or script to lyrics.