United Kingdom: Glasgow officialy submitted its bid to host Eurovision 2023!

The city of Glasgow has officially entered the race to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, following the EBU’s announcement yesterday that the UK will host the next event.

Following the EBU’s announcement that the UK will host the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, the city of Glasgow has confirmed that it is officially bidding to host Eurovision 2023. Glasgow is currently the bookies’ leading choice for the host city of the next competition.

The official confirmation of Glasgow’s candidacy comes as no surprise, as since the EBU’s announcement that the 2023 competition will not be held in Ukraine, Glasgow City Council has fully supported the idea of hosting the event. The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, was also similarly positive about the possibility of hosting the next Eurovision on Scottish soil.

Today the City Council stated that Glasgow meets all the technical requirements needed to host the Eurovision Song Contest and that hosting the event could bring more than £20 million to the local economy.

Since it became a possibility that the UK might host on behalf of Ukraine, we’ve been working hard on our bid. We know we meet all the technical requirements, and we know Glaswegians are desperate to welcome the world with open arms. Time is now really short to organise the contest and, having recently hosted COP, we know Glasgow is the safest of safe pairs of hands.

Should Glasgow be the EBU and BBC’s choice for the next competition, it will be hosted at the OVO Hydro. OVO Hydro is Scotland’s largest indoor stadium, hosting many sporting and cultural events every year and having the capacity to accommodate up to 14,000 spectators. Among others, huge names of the world music scene have passed through the OVO Hydro stage, such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Muse, Adele, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, etc.

If Glasgow’s bid is finally selected, it will be the first time a Eurovision event will be held in the city since 2008, when the now-defunct Eurovision Dance Contest took place there.

The following cities have confirmed that they have started working on their bids:

• Aberdeen
• Glasgow
• Liverpool

While the following cities have already stated their intention to submit a bid:

• Belfast
• Birmingham
• Brighton
• Bristol
• Cardiff
• Leeds
• London
• Manchester
• Newcastle
• Sheffield
• Sunderland
• Wolverhampton

Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin with the song “Stefania”. It was Ukraine’s third victory in the contest’s history, after 2004 and 2016.

Source: Scotsman, Eurovoix