Sweden: Bag ban in all major events, effective last Wednesday! | How are Mello and Eurovision affected?
Based on the increased terrorist threat level, the Swedish Police Authority has decided to ban bags at major events in Sweden.
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Sweden: The Melodifestivalen 2024 tour is approaching! | Tickets for all shows to be released on the 6th of November!
Earlier today via their official instagram account, SVT announced that the sale of tickets for all the 6 shows of Melodifestivalen 2024 will start in November the 6th:
View this post on Instagram
After Melodifestivalen 2023 broke audience records and Sweden also claimed the win in the Eurovision Song Contest in May, there is no doubt that expectations are high for the 2024 edition of the Melodifestivalen tour. The tickets go on sale Monday, November 6 at 10:00 a.m. GMT via LiveNation.se. The interest to experience the Swedish national final festival live is expected to be great!
We remind you that Melodifestivalen 2024 is scheduled to take place between February 3rd to March 9th, while SVT has received 2624 songs. The final list of Melodifestivalen participants will be published later this year, between end of November and beginning of December.
This is the schedule of the six shows of the Melodifestivalen 2024 tour:
- Heat 1: Saturday 3 February 2024, Malmö Arena, Malmö
- Heat 2: Saturday 10 February 2024, Scandinavium, Göteborg
- Heat 3: Saturday 17 February 2024, Vida Arena, Växjö
- Heat 4: Saturday 24 February 2024, Stiga Sports Arena, Eskiltuna
- Heat 5: Saturday 2 March 2024, Löfbergs Arena, Karlstad
- Final: Saturday 9 March 2024, Friends Arena, Stockholm – Solna
The 68th Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Malmö, Sweden in 7, 9 and 11th of May 2024, after the second win of Loreen in Liverpool, with her song “Tattoo”:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the most loved Eurovision national final!
Source: Melfest Live / SVT
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Sweden: SVT will announce the host city of next year’s contest, next week!
As we have already written in many of our past articles about the host city race of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden, the announcement is expected to be made on the 7th of July.
Göteborgs-Posten today confirms that, by the end of next week, SVT will announce the city that will get the chance to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, following Loreen’s second victory with the song “Tattoo”. That means that in less than a week from now we will know which of the cities that have submitted their bid, will be selected to host next year’s contest!
But how probable is it for each city that has submitted a bid, to host next year’s contest? Read more below!
Four cities in the hopes of hosting next year’s contest
Malmö has always expressed a strong interest in hosting the contest and they have officially submitted their bid to host next year’s contest! Malmö had hosted it back in 1992 and also in 2013 after the first victory of Loreen in 2012 with the iconic Swedish entry “Euphoria“.
Currently, Malmö has the biggest chances to host next year’s contest and less than seven days are left until the announcement which will make it clear if Malmö will get selected to be the host city or not!
As already reported, Stockholm has officially submitted their bid to host the contest that Loreen brought back home with her second victory one month ago.
Stockholm currently faces a few issues, mostly regarding the hosting venue of the contest. Friends Arena is booked for Taylor Swift’s concerts on the 17th and 18th of May and Tele2 Arena is booked throughout May for the football matches of AIK and Hammarby Fotboll respectively.
Another issue that has come up, is the fact that the hosting bid of Stockholm City, includes plans to build a temporary arena from scratch, at Frihamnen port of Stockholm, which will then become the center of the event and the arena, which will hold between 11,000 and 15,000 people, will also remain for a limited time, then it will be removed.
According to Aftonbladet’s Fredrik Björkman, Moderaternas, or Moderates in English, a liberal-conservative party, strongly opposes to the case that such a decision is taken. More specifically, Dennis Wedin, opposition city councillor of the political party, has mentioned:
“It is unacceptable that Stockholm’s taxpayers should be stuck with building a new arena linked to this when we have so many other core municipal activities that need money right now in a tough financial situation. It sounds very tone-deaf!”
Following the submission of Stockholm, Gothenburg wouldn’t miss out on submitting their own bid to host the contest next year. Gothenburg has only hosted the contest back in 1985 and it seem like they are quite eager to host next year’s contest.
However, Scandinavium, which could be the venue to host the contest in case Gothenburggets selected as the host city of 2024, has some accessibility issues that might not allow the city to be selected. For the same reasons Gothenburg bid had gotten rejected by EBU in the recent past.
According to reports from SVT, Gothenburg’s political majority back the city council’s bid to host next year’s contest! This came up from the announcement that the city’s red-green party gave, on Wednesday evening.
Municipal councillor Daniel Bernmar has stated:
”It would benefit both the citizens of Gothenburg and cultural life. We can do this with large international events, so we see it as positive”
Örnsköldsvik has never hosted the Eurovision Song Contest before. Övik is a small city up north in Sweden, in Västernorrland with a little less than 33.000 inhabitants.
Örnsköldsvik had hosted this year’s Melodifestivalen Semifinalen at Hägglunds Arena, where the arena looked a bit tiny compared to other shows of the tour. The municipality in order to tackle any accommodation issues and to be able to welcome all the event visitors, said that cruise ships in the harbor will be used as additional accommodation.
This came as a response to several reports back in the beginning of March, of rip-off prices to a rather limited and not decent enough selection of hotel rooms when the Semi-Final show of Melodifestivalen took place there, making us think that the chances of Örnsköldsvik hosting the contest are a bit tad.
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!
Sources: Göteborgs-Posten, SVT, Aftonbladet
Sweden: Plans to build a temporary arena for Eurovision 2024?
Four cities are competing to host Eurovision 2024, including the capital city of Stockholm, which is the favorite to host the next competition. While the selection process is underway and the candidate cities Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg, and Örnsköldsvik have received documents outlining the necessary requirements, an article in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter is stirring things up regarding the venue of next year’s competition.
As mentioned, Stockholm is the frontrunner to organize the competition as it has all the necessary infrastructure. However, the main issue revolves around the stadium where Eurovision 2024 will take place. While Friends Arena was the preferred choice, it appears that Taylor Swift’s concert on May 17th in Stockholm, a date within a possible week of the Eurovision according to a leaked confidential document from SVT, and moreover, at a stadium included in the city’s proposal, is changing the plans of the organizers.
According to the latest publication in Dagens Nyheter, there are plans to construct an arena specifically for hosting Eurovision 2024. Due to the increased requirements of the event, this proposal aims to solve the problem of finding a suitable venue for a significant period of time, at least six weeks, which has been one of the main problems for the organizers every year.
The proposal includes the construction of a temporary arena with a capacity ranging from 11,180 to 14,700 spectators in the Frihamnen area of Stockholm. The article adds that the venue will remain operational for a certain period of time after the competition. The proposal is supported by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce, the Property Owners’ Association, as well as the tourism organization “Visit Stockholm.”
Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun.com for all the developments regarding the organization of Eurovision 2024!
Source: Dagens Nyheter
Eurovision 2024: Eurovision week possible dates clash with announced date of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Stockholm!
SVT is already in the process of evaluating all host city bids for next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after submission window closed on the 12th of June, while Stockholm, Malmö, Göteborg and Örksöldsvik are crossing their fingers to be selected to host the contest.
This was how things were, up until today 6pm CET, when global megastar Taylor Swift announced the dates of her Eras Tour! Someone with hawk eyes could easily notice that there’s a date announced for Stockholm, Sweden and that is on the 17th of May, 2024! This is a date right within a potential Eurovision week, according to leaked SVT document with host-city prerequisites and details of the contest to be held in Sweden next year!
EXCUSE ME HI I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY 🙋♀️ I can’t wait to see so many of you on The Eras Tour next year at these new international dates! Visit https://t.co/EYBevxhQzH for more information on your registrations, pre-sales and on-sales!! pic.twitter.com/G8zx8QUUAV
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) June 20, 2023
So, is Stockholm now completely out of the game? I would say not really. Let’s see how things could possibly shape up with the potential host-cities of next year’s contest:
- Stockholm Live, the company behind the management of Friends Arena (Nationalarenan), Tele2 Arena (Stockholmsarenan), Annexet etc. when events take place there, could potentially relocate Taylor Swift’s concert to Tele2 Arena instead of Friends Arena, in case Stockholm and Friends are to be selected as the host city and contest venue respectively. However, this is a multi-million tour, it is highly unlikely for changes to be made, dates
- Stockholm could still be selected and the contest could be hosted in Tele2 Arena, but under the de-branded name Stockholmsarenan. This could comply to the rules and prerequisites set for the host-city by SVT and there would also not be any conflicts with the Taylor Swift Stockholm concert.
- Stockholm Live events for 2024 are only a Niall Horan concert, but to be held at Hovet which is not a venue where a Eurovision Song Contest could be held and the Taylor Swift concert at Friends Arena.
- I would already rule out the contest final to be held on the 11th of May, 2024. Orthodox Easter is on the 5th of May, so that means that all Orthodox competing countries would have to be in Eurovision-mode and have to rehearse during their Holy Week. In such a case, it wouldn’t surprise me if we had some withdrawals from the respective countries.
- Then there is the (highly unlikely) case of the (already scheduled) renovation of Globen Arena (Avicii Arena) to be postponed for about 5 months.
- If nothing from the above works or if the football teams AIK and Hammarby Fotboll refuse to move from their arena for several weeks, then that would mean that Stockholm could miss the opportunity to host the Eurovsion Song Contest 2024!
- All this hassle could make way for Malmö to host the contest, once more after a Loreen victory, who are more than eager to host! It’s worth noting that even Melodifestivalen is a big thing for the city of Malmö.
- Malmö Arena has a few events a month before the potential Eurovision weeks, which could be rescheduled.
- Göteborg and Örnsköldsvik in my opinion do not cover main points of the requirements set by SVT.
Only a few days left till July, when SVT is rumoured to be announcing their decision on the Swedish city that will get the honour to host the 7th Swedish contest, next year!
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Sweden and the announcement of next year’s contest host city!
Eurovision 2024: SVT wants to reduce Eurovision airtime by a full hour!
As we have already reported, cities around Sweden which wish to host the Eurovision Song Contest of 2024, have all received an extensive confidential list of 123 points of prerequisites by SVT, that the city that receives the task of hosting the world’s largest live music competition should make sure are in place!
This extensive document has covered literally everything! From the audience capacity that the proposed arena can take in, seated and standed, that needs to be reported by each applicant city, to the ability of the roof to hold suspended loads and by how much weight! This is something that was relevant for Loreen this year and is usually a recurring question for the delegations that want to hang scenography on the ceiling.
What is really interesting is, as Aftonbladet journalist Torbjörn Ek has revealed, that there is actually time/duration indication mentioned to the confidential document Sweden’s largest daily has in their hands! Under the item “Important dates“, as previously reported, SVT lists which two weeks may be relevant to carry out the three Eurovision broadcasts. It states that the semi-finals and finals will either be broadcast on 7, 9 and 11 May or 14, 16 and 18 May. But also that the semi-finals are expected to be broadcast between 21:00 and 23:00 and the final between 21:00 and 00:15! In Liverpool the broadcast was scheduled for four hours, 21:00 to 01:00, but it dragged on and on Youtube you can see that the broadcast was 4 hours 14 minutes and 45 seconds long.
It seems that this is also something that has been discussed among broadcasting TV companies and now SVT seems to be set on shortening the broadcast by a full hour. Let’s see if this will eventually be implemented, in what way and to what cost!
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!
Source: Aftonbladet
Eurovision 2024: Örsnköldsvik is confirmed to join the race, hoping to host Eurovision 2024!
The submissions deadline for next year’s Eurovision Song Contest host city ended last night at 23:59. Today it got public that Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö have officially submitted their bids to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden.
As we had previously reported, Örnsköldsvik had expressed interest in hosting the contest, following a successful contest in Liverpool, UK, this year. SVT now confirms that the municipality of Örnsköldsvik, or Övik as the Swedish people call it (too hard to pronounce), has applied to host Eurovision 2024.
The municipality also pointed out that in this year’s Melodifestivalen, 11 out of 28 entries had music makers with connection to Örnsköldsvik. The municipality makes it clear that they want to create a sustainable and climate-neutral Eurovision Song Contest.
How probable is it for Örnsköldsvik to host the contest?
Örnsköldsvik has never hosted the Eurovision Song Contest before. Övik is a small city up north in Sweden, in Västernorrland with a little less than 33.000 inhabitants.
Örnsköldsvik had hosted this year’s Melodifestivalen Semifinalen at Hägglunds Arena, where the arena looked a bit tiny compared to other shows of the tour. The municipality in order to tackle any accommodation issues and to be able to welcome all the event visitors, said that cruise ships in the harbor will be used as additional accommodation.
This came as a response to several reports back in the beginning of March, of rip-off prices to a rather limited and not decent enough selection of hotel rooms when the Semi-Final show of Melodifestivalen took place there, making us think that the chances of Örnsköldsvik hosting the contest are a bit tad.
Cities confirmed to have submitted their bid to host next year
Possible city announcement date
In the two latest Swedish-hosted contests, back in 2013 with the announcement of Malmö and 2015 with the announcement of Stockholm, both took place on July 8. If SVT follows the same pattern, that means that within a month we will know which city will host next year’s contest, possibly on Friday 7th of July, 2023.
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!
Source: SVT
Eurovision 2024: Malmö officially submitted their bid to host Eurovision 2024!
The submissions deadline for next year’s Eurovision Song Contest host city ended last night at 23:59. Up until then, it was clear that two cities had submitted their bid to host Eurovision Song Contest 2024, after Loreen won for a second time at this year’s contest held in Liverpool, Stockholm and Göteborg.
As we had previously reported, it was not yet clear if Malmö had submitted their bid to host next year. Not clear until now. It is confirmed that the city of Malmö has submitted their application to Swedish broadcaster SVT.
Already in the days after Loreen‘s win in the Eurovision Song Contest final, a month ago in Liverpool, voices within the city of Malmö hoped that the next final could be held in Malmö. At the same time, elected mayor of Malmö Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh warned that the financial situation could get in the way of a potential application.
Malmö city recreational director, Johan Hermansson commented:
“Malmö can host the Eurovision song contest in 2024. Malmö arena is one of Europe‘s most distinguished event arenas.”
How possible is it for Malmö to host the contest?
Malmö had hosted the Eurovision Song Contest twice already, once back in 1992 and a second time in 2013 after the first victory of Loreen in 2012 with the iconic Swedish entry “Euphoria“.
However, in our discussions with SVT, next year the broadcaster mentioned that they aim to set the hosting standards to a new high, which makes us believe that Malmö is highly unlikely to be selected, as the contest back in 2013 was considered to be a bit underwelming.
Cities confirmed to have submitted their bid to host next year
Possible city announcement date
In the two latest Swedish-hosted contests, back in 2013 with the announcement of Malmö and 2015 with the announcement of Stockholm, both took place on July 8. If SVT follows the same pattern, that means that within a month we will know which city will host next year’s contest, possibly on Friday 7th of July, 2023.
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!
Source: Sydsvenskan
Eurovision 2024: Bid submission window for Eurovision Song Contest 2024 host cities ends tonight!
The deadline for Swedish cities, that are interested in hosting next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, to submit their bids to SVT ends tonight at 23:59. Quite a few cities have reportedly expressed their interest in hosting Eurovision Song Contest 2024, while two of them have formally announced that they are officially bidding on hosting the contest next year.
Stockholm
As already reported, Stockholm has officially submitted their bid to host the contest that Loreen brought back home with her second victory one month ago. Stockholm currently faces a few issues, mostly regarding the hosting venue of the contest. Two most probable venues, Friends Arena and Tele2 Arena are booked in May for the football matches of AIK and Hammarby Fotboll respectively. The municipality of Stockholm, which has been in early talks with all the relevant parts, is confident that all the venue issues and also some discussions with regards to funding of the contest will be resolved.
Gothenburg
Following the submission of Stockholm, Gothenburg wouldn’t miss out on submitting their own bid to host the contest next year. Gothenburg has only hosted the contest back in 1985 and it seem like they are quite eager to host next year’s contest. However, Scandinavium, which could be the venue to host the contest in case Gothenburg gets selected as the host city of 2024, has some accessibility issues that might not allow the city to be selected. For the same reasons Gothenburg bid had gotten rejected by EBU in the recent past.
Malmö
Malmö has also expressed a strong interest in hosting the contest. However it is not officially confirmed yet, so it still remains to be seen whether they have submitted their bid or not. Malmö had hosted it back in 1992 and also in 2013 after the first victory of Loreen in 2012 with the iconic Swedish entry “Euphoria“.
However, in our discussions with SVT, next year the broadcaster mentioned that they aim to set the hosting standards to a new high, which makes us believe that Malmö is highly unlikely to be selected, as the contest back in 2013 was considered to be a bit underwelming.
More cities interested in hosting the 2024 contest:
Sandviken did not proceed with the submission of their bid!
Despite their warm interest in hosting the contest, Sandviken with their proposal to investigate the possibilities of organizing the Eurovision Song Contest, in Göransson Arena, did not proceed with thesubmission of the bid eventually.
In the two latest Swedish-hosted contests, back in 2013 with the announcement of Malmö and 2015 with the announcement of Stockholm, both took place on July 8. If SVT follows the same pattern, that means that within a month we will know which city will host next year’s contest, possibly on Friday 7th of July, 2023.
Sweden will host the 68th Eurovision Song Contest after Loreen’s iconic second win with the song “Tattoo“:
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, in Sweden!
Sweden: The city of Stockholm in early talks, eager to host Eurovision 2024!
Today, at Kungsträdgården, a celebration to welcome Loreen back to Sweden was held, with thousands of people enthusiastically cheering while Loreen was performing “Tattoo” on the stage that was setup for the Hemkosten event!
According to Gustav Dahlander, Swedish journalist and SVT in-house expert for Melodifestivalen, during the event, Karin Wanngård, the Financial City Commissioner of Stockholm, stated when interviewed:
“Eurovision needs a big arena. To get a good party, you want a big audience, so of course, in that case it would primarily be Friends Arena.”
Karin Wanngård, Financial City Commissioner of Stockholm, in today’s on-stage interview:
“Eurovision needs a big arena. To get a good party, you want a big audience, so of course, in that case it would primarily be Friends Arena.”https://t.co/sqHnfpgbG1 #Eurovision
— Gustav Dahlander (@GustavDahlander) May 16, 2023
Friends Arena has a total capacity of approximately 60.000 people, but whenever it hosts Melodifestivalen Final Show, it gets halved, but can still host the impressive number of 30.000 people all seated. If Martin Österdahl selects Stockholm as the host city and Friends Arena as the hosting venue, then it can be one of the largest venues ever to host the contest!
Today was not the first time Stockholm expressed interest in hosting next year’s contest
According to major Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, the City Hall of Stockholm had been in early talks with the financial center, the chamber of commerce and the Visit Stockholm insitution since the last weeks of March, following the victory of Loreen at the Swedish national selection process, Melodifestivalen!
The City of Stockholm, started planning internally way to early in advance, compared to when Måns Zemerlöw won, when Stockholm held their first meeting on the Monday directly after the victory. It seems like this time they wanted to be even more prepared.
According to the independent business organization, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, the last time Sweden took home the Eurovision Song Contest and hosted the show in 2016, the created tourism economic effects were around SEK 263 million (approximately 230 million Euros), in the money value of the time. After a projection of the income at today’s prices, the same number of visitors would yield revenues of more than SEK 310 million (approximately 275 million Euros). Admittedly, it costs a lot to organize the competition, but hosting the contest can still bring significant profits to the city.
Loreen wants Stockholm to host the contest in 2024!
During the Winner’s Press Conference at M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, UK, after our own Andreas Papayiannakis asked Loreen how she feels about equalling the victories of Ireland in the contest, Loreen unapologetically stated, referring to Swedish Head of Delegation Lotta Furebäck, that she prefers Stockholm to host next year’s contest!
“It better be Stockholm man! We need to talk about this, but it better be Stockholm!”
You can watch the relevant video below:
Despite the fact that major football teams AIK and Hammarby Fotboll, that play during the season at Friends Arena and Tele2 Arena respectively, are refusing to move temporarily to other stadiums for six weeks, Stockholm City is so eager to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, that it is very likely for all issues to be resolved soon. The football association is perfecly OK with moving games due to European Cup participation, so maybe they could just move one or two AIK home games a month or two. As for Tele2, Hammarby Fotboll and Djurgården can play at home for two days in a row, so Stockholm City hosting Eurovision 2024 seems doable.
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Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all the news regarding Eurovision!
Sources: Aftonbladet, Gustav Dahlander, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce
