Ours was much better, and much slicker - but I think a lot of acts got burned last year when it came to staging and lighting, because of the last minute changes required. Hence less ambitious use of a very strong set up.
So who wasn't ambitious enough this year then?
Cos I'm struggling to work out who this really applies to.
Austria's performance is possibly the one that springs to my mind - the way it was recieved in the arena was wildly different to the tv. But they could really have made a lot more of the dance WITHOUT the need for staging at all. Croatia are the really good example of how you can do a lot with little. Yes they DID use the big screens but really they were still mainly down to those costumes over everything.
And tbh I think Austria's biggest two problems were their position in the running order and the clip that was used for the recap - which really didn't capture the song well.
Nor can you argue that the UK, Germany or France didn't go all out for staging. Yet they bombed particularly hard. Moldova really made good use of the stage - again that pretty much bombed.
Ukraine which did well had the best staging of the night. Finland definitely went for the staging too. And Australia put a flipping car on stage.
As for the stage itself - I don't think the design of the shape of stage compared to Italy really was an issue to anyone but those on the arena floor. For everyone else, the fact it was another screen just added to the effect.