Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Tomorrow, Wednesday July 20, 2016 the battle of the cities will start big time. In a live broadcast of the public work meeting hosted and co-produced by Tim Miroshnychenko that will air from 17.30 CET on radio and television as well as here and on Youtube, possibly with an English commentator. The six candidate cities - Kiev, Lviv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson and Odessa - will present their bids, in most cases by their mayors, and press, experts and viewers may comment and participate in the process. Live links will be taken to the cities in question and all sort of things like that.  When Kiev hosted the Eurovision song contest 2005 following Ruslana's win in Istanbul, it was the only option. In 12 years Ukraine has grown and developed, and hosted various international big scale events over the years and thus has more to choose from.  But the fun won't end with this broadcast. The Ukrainian Eurovision 2017 project will continue its open and public work with live broadc...

(Lviv) NTU has received six bids to host the Eurovision song contest 2017 in Ukraine, altogether six different cities and seven arenas. The NTU working group will now review the proposals and ideas before they will be officially presented, and by July 22 they should have picked up two cities and venues for the final selection and the announcement where it will be should be done in a press conference on August 1 after the committee, NTU and EBU have carefully considered both the final bids. (Dnipro) Official bids where and how by Dnipro , Kherson  and Odessa  are yet to be made public, but Kharkiv comes forward with Metalist Oblast Sports Comples (capacity of 40.000), but it lacks the roof that must be constructed before it is usable for the Eurovision.  (Kiev) Kiev proposes Palace of Sports (capacity 10.000), the very venue of 2005 Eurovision song contest. Their problem is it is now considered dated and too small, plus it will be hosting part of the Ic...

The preparations for the 2017 Eurovision song contest in Ukraine seem to be facing some major problems to start with. First NTU wanted to change the previsional dates a week earlier, because May 18 is the Day of Remembrance for the victims of Crimean Tatar genocide, but the dates proposed don't go well with EBU as they are clashing with some major sports events, namely the Champions League semifinal matches. EBU doesn't want to lose viewers, which is very much understandable. This blogger remembers with horror when back in the day the Eurovision final and the World Championship final in Ice Hockey used to clash and with the household of one TV only there was always such a fight over it with ice hockey crazed brother and father.... Never again! But it's not only the dates that are causing some head scraching in Ukraine, as apparently they don't have a suitable venue that would fill all the requirements by EBU either, as stated by the Minister of Culture Yevhen Nys...

The bidding for the host city for the Eurovision song contest 2017 in Ukraine has officially started. The cities have time until July 8 to submit their entry. The next week NTU will have a look at the submissions and showcase the best ones to the Organizing committee that will pick up to finalists by July 22 that will be then presented to EBU. After visits to the finalist we will know on August 1 , 2016 the next host city. Ukrainians voted in a poll Lviv as their favorite followed by Kiev, that would be most likely NTU's and EBU's favorite unless the others come up with something very interesting and spectacular.  Besides beforementioned Kiev and Lviv also Odessa, Cherkasy, Dnipro, Kherson and Vinnytsia have expressed their interest.... This blogger still wants Lviv.....  And what doess it take to host Eurovision? Below are some numbers to consider: Arena with a capacity of at least 7000 Official hotels of European standards within easy reach from the arena pro...

The Kiev Pride 2016 starts tomorrow under slogan Security of a person - development of the country! The program includes exhibitions, films, discussion forums, seminars and all the usual Pride things and topics. There's of course also the Opening party, Pride Party on Friday night and most visibly the Equality March on Sunday. And this march has been threated by bloodbath by local Neo-Nazis and the narrow minded local Orthodoc Church isn't very amused either. Earlier this year a LBGT right conference in Lviv was shut down after an attack with rocks and fireworks. Police was called on the spot, yet no one was arrested and the conference was shut down instead.  Let's see how this ends. The NTU and EBU meeting about the 2017 Eurovision song contest takes place in Geneva right after, JUne 13-14..... UPDATE: The march went reasonable well. There were 700-1500 marchers (dependig on source) and some 5500 policemen to secure it. Apparently 57 people have been detaine...

In a recent poll majority of Ukrainians want to have the Eurovision song contest 2017 in the culutral capital of Ukraine, Lviv instead of Kiev to showcase other part of the country. And this blogger understands that well as Lviv looks lovely! The major hickup is the proposed venue, Arena Lviv lacks a roof. Constructed between 2008 and 2011 it can have up to 34.915 seats, and houses also VIP clubs and restaurants, media center and other halls that would surely turn out to be useful for Eurovision purposes. It hosted some UEFA Euro 2012 games; Denmark, Germany and Poland. Besides the lacking roof the local trasnport, mainly trams, and arena's location somewhere outskirts next to a ring road may play against it and that's a shame as Lviv seems to be a very interesting and beautiful city. I would be thrilled to go there next May! They also bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics but withdraw their bid in June 2014, for reasons we all know. They plan to bid again for the 2026.  ...

Three cities in Ukraine have candidated for the Eurovision song contest 2017. It seems though NTU and EBU are settling for Kiev for all obvious reasons as other candidates Lviv and Odessa may be up to requirements from suitabel venue to hotel capacity and international trave connections. The work in Ukraine has already started and Viktoria Romanova, Head of delegation in Stockholm, hopes the people's fear of not having enough money to organize it will soon turn into joy and source of pride but the fact is they need some additional funding, and that's the main problem to be resolved. We can expect the decision where the contest will head to next May within a couple of months, before the end of summer at latest.  "With regard to the budget there are no restrictions, but we have a moral feeling within ourselves that we should avoid luxury and sparkles purely for moral reasons, since after all the country is still in a war state" - NTU's General Director Alasania ...