Opinion

Yep you cut right through

The press centre was surprisingly quiet when she did her first run - is this a fav that I missed or something? Do people think this will do that well?

She seems lovely though - just met her running through the press centre - without luggage obviously - but this song seems to get a little lost for me :-/

So my mornings here are always way better than the afternoons, as I really have very little to do until around lunchtime when the press conferences and interviews start - I'm not really live blogging, as others on the team do that....

But some comments on this morning;
Security - this has been beefed up today - all laptops and phones must be switched on before entering the press centre. I guess this is a good thing
The massed hordes- still quite quiet here, not many seems to have made the trek to Kyiv. As I look around there are only about 100-150 people here max!
The Weather - ugh. It went cold :-/

Oh and we has a bus from our hotel - yay. And travel passes now. Double yay

And one final comment from me - it's amazing just how hard some people can work when they want to...just sayin!!!

Day one

Well the most important tasks for me, always, on day one is to actually get into the press centre in good time, and hunt the interview lists. So The Boss and I duly arrived at around 7.45 in the morning to make sure we were in a reasonable place in the queue to get in - first!

The only real issue we had with this was that actually entering the building ended up being so confusing, with two queues (one for S accreditations and on for P) but in the end it all worked out as we were the first to get in. Which leads onto task two. Hunt the interview lists. This is a huge thing for me each and every year, there are never lists prepared in advance, the poor volunteers never know what I am talking about and it often takes about 20-30 minutes to even get them to prepare some sort of list for the press wanting to book interviews. When you bear in mind that the first rehearsal is on stage at 10, the press centre opens at 9 and there are other things to get on with, this can cause a little raising of the heart rate!
Not this year though - amazingly, wonderfully and to my deepest delight - the lists were already prepared in advance….who knew that Ukraine could be so organised???? So well done on that!

So all in all the day started off really well in the end….computers all worked, wifi and LAN were fantastic speeds (Thanks Swedish Tecchie guys) and not too many hordes of massed fans running around like school girls on a day out from St Trinians. All going so well so far yes??? Err well no, cos that’s when rehearsals started on the big screens….

Now we know that every year there are sound issues, always with the first run through. So if we know there are always problems, then surely the organisers should know the same? And maybe, you know, test things first? Nah, that would be too simply. So we were left with watching the big screen and attempting to listen to the sound coming from the arena next door. Which was fun. Anyway maybe I am being too harsh and expecting too much? Still it was all solved pretty quickly and left with the delight of the Swedish rehearsal.

Blogging is not really part of the things I get to grips with at the Eurovision each year, most of my work revolves around processing background stuff, like video, checking the work of the rest of the team, meeting with delegations to check for interviews, actually doing the interviews and generally just annoying people so I never really get a lot of time to watch the screens….but I do hear snippets of enough of the day to form a judgement on whats Fabulous, Great, Ok, and OMFG what the hell was that??? So here was my day in running order

Sweden Ok
Georgia Great
Albania Ok
Australia Ok
Belgium OMFG what the hell was that?
Montenegro Fabulous
Finland Fabulous
Azerbaijan Great
Portugal - - - Can’t really judge as he wasn’t singing but still find the song really dull…

Team Kaz has 2 full time and some part time English bloggers so if you want detail on who wore what, who did what to whom, and that Azerbaijan step Ladder please check them out….

The other huge part of my day was dealing with interviews, and we managed to get 4 out of 8 done yesterday with three being mine, Sweden, Albania and Montenegro. No real surprises with any of these as I’ve met them all before, apart from Slavko, he does get really in depth when you get him away from his on stage persona and get him talking on a level about some deeper though provoking stuff. He’s actually super intelligent and opinionated and kinda the guy I have a secret admiration for in the way he behaves and carry himself. Lindita is also the same, again get them talking about stuff away from Eurovision and underneath the surface gloss are some really deep individuals

I missed the interview with Finland, but I know that these two guys are the same as Slavvie and Linnie above, in that respect. Georgia’s Tamara seems a little off the wall, but in a totally great “don’t mess with me or I will destroy you” kinda way….still you can judge for yourselves on the clips. Robin was the one I still am trying to find a connection with every time I meet him though. I am still not sure if he is being reserved due to shyness or a lack of sleep or a lack of something else entirely but I will keep trying to find out what his buttons are and such them hard

All in all it was actually a great day, as “Eurovision Day One”s go, it all worked, we left the press centre on time, and still got to the restaurant in time to have food drink gossip with friends and actually look forward to Day Two without coming out in a cold sweat

Day one done.
Vodka on the way
With some food maybe

So expect drunk blogging a bit later on :-)

Or maybe not - meet and greets have started **sigh**

Big pictures of Isaiah on the backdrop help this along a bit, otherwise it's a competent vocal, even if the song is a little dull. They seem to be trying to repeat the success of Dami Im last year but it's no where near that standard yet

Georgia

Well it was always going to be a little early for Tamara on stage, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well this sounded and looked on the screens. No real costume hints yet at all....but good start for her

Albania

Technical issues at the moment so Lindita had a small lung work out and then vanished from our screens
They seem to be starting again now.....

So it really does begin now - the carnage of the press centre queue - when your's truly managed to get them to make two queues for the different accreditation badges.....so in the end we were in before the opening time of 9.00 a.m.

The press centre is pretty impressive, not heard anyone say anything negative about it yet at all....we are a bit spoilt so far by Kyiv and their Swedish helpers ;-)

So a short clip around the centre is here and some photos underneath, coffee time :-0

So our opinions on the host city’s efforts in 2005 are well known in Eurovision circles - in fact we even discussed them with the Tourist Board of Kyiv back in London when they visited. They agreed this was a missed opportunity, badly handled and showcased Kyiv in a bad light in some respects. These were mainly around the service provided by the city’s restaurants, cafes, bar and clubs. This, we have to say, was not the standard we would have expected in other areas of Europe. That said the contest itself was reasonably well handled - if a little chaotic - and the Euroclub was great fun.

So comparing to 2017???? Well to be honest we were very very pleasantly surprised last night. We met with some friends and decided to put the “Service with a Smile” promise to the test. In the very busy Khreshchatyk Street area we found upmarket stores and boutiques, plenty of choice of restaurants and a buzzing crowd of happy smiley young locals out for some Friday night entertainment. Sadly the “Dancing Girl” Bars are still everywhere but this will slowly disappear - give it time

Eventually we settled on the https://www.facebook.com/MenyaMusashiKyiv/ restaurant just off the main street. Service was perfect, with English spoken by all staff, menu was great, and food arrived really quickly and - the best bit - all at the same time. All fro less than €10 each too. With wine!….

So far so good, keep it up Kyiv you’re doing much better than we thought you would and kudos for you for that.

Mike;

Still calling it for Russia this year, with either Australia or Ukraine in second place

BUT I would love to see Austria do it, that would be simply amazing but unlikely to happen and of course I am totally hoping for a top 10 place for Georgia

Daniel

Think that Russia will still pull this off, with a dark horse as Serbia and France possibly having their best score for years.

Would love to see Russia win this all in the end BUT at the same time Bulgaria should hopefully do well too, good luck to Poli