Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

RTP was surprisingly quickly to announce Lisbon and MEO Arena as the venue for the Eurovision song contest 2018. What an anticlimax, wasn't it? Even if it's still pretty much clear that's the only possible and suitable one, soon enough Portuguese may have realized some drama and suspence was expected and useful to keep the project in media for the months to come so... first enter Faro and Guimarães, even if they don't meet the major requirements like a suitable arena and international airport but still want to be involved in the bidding process for the fun of it.  Portugal's second city Porto quickly said  não, obrigado , but seems now willing to enter the game through Europarque in Santa Maria da Feira, some 25 kms from the city. The multi use conference center has a paviglion of 11.000 capacity. Let the televovela "EuroHost 2018" begin..... 

Ok, just when you thooght it was going smoothly and the money and energy was not wasted for nonsense, mayors of three cities in Portugal demand an open bid: Guimarães, Faro and Santa Maria da Feira. The Lisbon Eurovision tram is going uphill..... Why not let RTP and EBU just concentrate on next year's event in peace without all this useless process as none of the cities has no real chance to host it in the first place? They don't have international airports and suitable venues to start with. People are crazy everywhere, anything for a moment in a spotlight and five minutes of fame.... But let's look what these cities have to offer? The History of Guimarães, situated in the north of the country, is associated with the foundation and identity of the Portuguese nationality. It has a population of less than 160.000. Faro, the southernmost city in Portugal near touristic hotspot Algarve has a population of 65.000. It has a roofless stadium with capacity of 30.000. ...