Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Apparently Rai and Ebu have been to the location of the suitable Eurovision bidding cities after having dropped from the race the ones that didn't fulfill everything needed for a successful event, including the capital Rome.  The front runners Turin and Milan are still there, as is Bologna that has been gaining support and quite surprisingly also Rimini (that wants to engage also San Marino in the party) and Pesaro. Could this mean we ae in for a somewhat unusual and surprising end, an Italian Millstreet perhaps? As we remember a total of seventeen cities wished to host Eurovision 2022, and after some over optimistic and ex tempore candidates we had eleven left. And now they are only five.... Five cities but seven venues: Torino - Pala Alpitour Rimini - Rimini Fiera Pesaro - Vitrifrigo Arena Bologna - Fiera di Bologna Paviglione 37 Bologna - Unipol Arena Milano - Mediolanum Arena Milano - Palazzo delle Scintille

Deadline has passed and the original 17 host city bidders were supposed to hand over their detailed offers to Rai for further examination and at this point six of them failed to do so, among them Florence. Surprisingly still 11 towns are in the process so one can only wonder what they have come up with! Especially Palazzolo Acreide! Addio to Bertinoro di Romagna, Firenze, Jesolo, Matera, Trieste and Viterbo at this stage.  Still in the race are Acireale, Alessandria, Bologna, Genova, Milano, Palazzolo Acreide, Pesaro, Rimini, Roma, Sanremo and Torino . As we know only Bologna, Milano, Roma and Torino have at first glance a suitable arena and all the rest, and Roma and Milano have already ruled themselves out with recently booked concerts by  Francesco Gabbani . Time will tell what the others included still in the list have in offer... some Italian style compromising and improvisation?  Palazzolo Acreide is a town of 8.668 souls in the deep south Sicily, living off agr...

After a string of top-10 places since their return to the contest back in 2011 (2nd, 9th, 7th, 21st, 3rd, 16th, 6th, 5th, 2nd) Måneskin managed to finish the business Raphael Gualazzi, Nina Zilli, Marco Mengoni, Il Volo, Francesco Gabbani, Ermal Meta, Fabrizio Moro and Mahmood started nor forgetting Francesca Michielin and Emma. Now it's time to Rai to show what they can do and put the legend "Rai doesn't want to win" to rest for good. Italy has hosted the contest twice before but that was a long time ago and a different concept. In 1965 Naples had the honors in Rai's tv-studios there, and in 1991 originally planned Sanremo changed to Cinecittá studios in Rome due to the Gulf war in the last minute that caused some hick ups to the Italian style already a bit confused organisation. But that was and this is now.  Back then it was much small event and could be held in a theater or big studio but not now. And here comes the problem with Italy: the lack of suitable, bi...