I'd gone because I love Eurovision and it was a change from meeting my friend in here home country.
Wed been to Liverpool the year before.
It really changed the atmosphere. The atmosphere in Malmö was tense. The atmosphere in the stadium was tense. (Thankfully we'd been staying in Copenhagen which wasn't sucked into this).
We just didn't want to get involved - we were there for fun - and talking to people, a lot of others felt the same. I'm sure it will put others off this year.
I also think Switzerland is much more accessible for large protests this year too.
We saw the police motorcade for the Israeli contingent. It was unreal. I've seen the UK PM's motorcade before and it was on a par with that. It was insane. They clearly thought the risk was that high and thats sobering. I can't imagine being another contestant WITHOUT any security in the same atmosphere. If the Israeli contingent needed that much security then everyone else was wise to distance themselves and potentially even be critical in the context of having no security themselves. You'd be insane to be plastering yourself all over the internet next to the Israeli contingent and honestlu as crowd members able to recognise this, I do feel the other countries were badly let down by organisers. That's before accounting for Joost's fully acknowledged personal issues (highly likely to be neuro-diversity) and the extra protection he should have had.
We are steering well clear this year.
We had a good time, but honestly the over riding feeling was uncomfortable and that's lasted.
Given I knew prior to the event that Joost had issues this hasn't helped my view - it was being expressed that there was concern prior to the event - the focus was clearly all on Israel without consideration to anyone else. That's not ok. I hope that there isn't a repeat this year.