Have you ever wondered what really is needed for a venue to be able to host an event like the Eurovision song contest? There's much more than meets the eye at first glance.
First of all the venue must be available for six weeks before the final, and even for the visits by EBU people already in January and March. As we know it takes time to build the stage and all the technical stuff but very little to tear it all down - wasn't B&W Hallerne empty by Tuesday morning after the final? It's alwaays kinda shocking to see them start tearing the stage down and things while the last people are still waiting to exit the venue....
There must be space for at least 10.000 people in the audience, on top of the space needed for the stage and all the technics.
The venue must be covered, soundproof and isolated from daylight, have air conditioning and be at least 15 meters high. That rules out all plans for Eurovision taking place in some outdoor stadium, that every now and then popup.....
There must be a minimum of 6000 mq backstage area for catering, dressing rooms, make up area, commentator boxes and all that technical stuff backstage like the infamous viewing room. Sometimes this can be taken care by tents, like in Copenhagen.
There must be also place for a Green room area for minimum of 300 people within or nearby the venue. Now that sounds interesting. Nearby. Well, the trend in recent years has been to have it in the arena itself but of course there are always different solutions. This blogger thinks the Copenhagen solution was maybe the best yet.
The press center must have a capacity of minimum 1500 journalists. Once again one handy solution is a tent.
On top of that there must be a space available for sponsors that can accomodate minimum 100 persons.
But even if you have the perfect venue, a lot is required from the city itself from trasportation issues to number of available hotel rooms. Copenhagen may have had some problems with the trasportation to the venue but the rest was perfect. As for Austria, the accomodation issue might turn out crucial to host city anywhere else but the capital Vienna, even if Innsbruck, Klagenfurt and Grazmight have a suitable venue. But then again, Vienna has two of them: Wiener Stadthalee and Messe Wien.
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