Eurovision 2026 Final Thread 3

[RedToothBrush]

Go.

We (Ireland) boycotted the show and I didn't watch it last night,

Just sharing the news that I've booked a ticket to see the legendary Johnny Logan in concert in Dublin in August.

When was the last time we sent in a scantily dressed woman?

I've just looked up the vocals for For Vi Gar Hjerm (sorry Danish!), and it's striking how similar the themes/lyrics are to Dizzy. The staging is also quite similar in a way.

• both gay singer/actors
• song about intense sexual passion
• both feature writhing dancing in a cube with different angles/twists

So why did Denmark do so much better?

• Soren is very much hotter and better dressed
• no toilet vibes from the cube
• mixed sex dancers, who don't go so close to stimulating sex
• Soren could actually sing and dance very well, and the song was more striking and impactful

Eurovision is very pro LGBT, but that doesn't mean they want to see stimulated gay sex any more than lots of viewers disliked Choke Me.

A Canadian friend was raving about the Sam Ryder song before I’d heard it in the UK. The pre-promotion is crucial for a song to do well. Wasn’t this year’s Sam a last minute replacement which is why no one had really heard the song before last week?

No, you still need to have a strong voice that can hold a tune. And the singer being from anywhere reinforces that.

We might not have a close neighbour country that loves us <looks sternly at France> but we have a huge expat population all over Europe. Surely that should translate to at least a marginally significant vote?

And why aren't Australia our reliable voting friends? Who are you voting for Australia?? We literally colonised it, English is the main language and King Charles III is head of state and we still cannot rely on a few solid votes?

Same question to Israel. Balfour and all that.

I gave 4 votes to Bulgaria. It seemed to me to be pure Eurovision, that Summer in Europe dancing in a club vibe.

Romania, just a big NO from me. Awful. I found that naff, ugly lyrics. Just awful.

The UK entry - staging felt a bit half hearted especially against some of the others with the wizz-bangs going off. It should be about the song but of course the staging plays a part (Conchita in the circle of fire as an example).

I went to a filming of Terry Wogan's TV show - I think 1986 - where there'd be a performance each night of UK Eurovision hopefuls and viewers chose the winner at the end of the week.

I saw Remember Monday perform live as I went to Basel. A big issue for them was the staging. The audience couldn’t see them for most of the song. You might think well the audience isn’t that many people but the audience vibe often correlates to wider voting imo. It was a messy song but I think it still would have done better had they connected better with the live audience.

Sam Ryder’s song wasn’t to my taste, but it was one we could actually be proud of. And he came across as genuinely likeable. Something we’re missing from a lot of our entries.

I think the UK was trying to go for something people could sing along to, in the same vein as Kaarija or Baby Lasagne, but massively missed the mark.

I've just gone back and listened to Andy Abraham's entry. I'd love us to use a band again with a powerful singer. His song was good - not great, lacking something - but good. Laughable that it came last.

He also did not look quite confident on the night as someone remarked.

It was probably nerves. But apparently he also wore a T-shirt with a supposedly funny allusion to getting null points. So maybe that came through also. It seemed to be prophetic.
It appeared a bit forced. Eurovision vibe in a cliche way.

I completely understand why it didn't win and I wouldn't have expected it to do well. However only achieving 1 point means many elements went wrong or were missing. Definitely the staging was lacking. That's the most obvious thing. The performance might rouse an already hyped crowd in person, but people are watching over 20 acts perform back to back. It needs to make an impression on the screen. This comes up again and again for us and we seem to just ignore the critique.

Also we shouldn't be nominating acts that aren't prepared - for whatever reason - to do the pre-tours. It should be for a penny, in for a pound.

Yeah, they were definitely going for the Baby Lasagne type vibe. And the official track has got more power to it than came across in the live performance.

But then, I loved Blue's I can but they fluffed up the vocals on the night. And regardless of your views of Lee Ryan 😂, he can sing.

I also thought he seemed nervous. He definitely did not command the stage or appear to be having fun.

Interesting what you say about the audience. They may not be voting on the night but each song will have been performed to a live audience at least 4/5 times ish before the final. Some of those audience members will stay in the host country but some will return home to vote.
our voting was influenced by the acts we were impressed with live when we saw a semi dress rehearsal.

Did you really mean to post, "we colonised you so you should vote for us"? What weird logic.

It’s not just the UK doing baldly, is it? There’s always another one of the Big 5 keeping us company at the bottom of the leaderboard (Germany this year, Spain the previous 2 years). And usually the host country too. I don’t think automatic qualification is doing us any favours. Songs that wouldn’t make it through the semis are always going to struggle in the final.

And I know we haven’t won since 1997. But France’s last win was in 1977, and Spain haven’t won since 1969. Even Germany last won in 2010. So it’s not especially unusual - especially with the number of countries participating (35 this year is on the low side - sometimes you have 17 or 18 countries in the semis rather than just 15).

Just caught up with Eurovision today and so happy to see the demonstration of love and support from the public vote for israel like last year, but delighted the bangaranga song won.

When I went to Eurovision in Malmö we went for one of the semis and we're back home on the plane for Friday. I then had a Eurovision party and was on here.

So yeah don't assume that everyone in the arena for a semi will attend a final. They are also likely to be lightning rods - they will have lots of friends who will not be at the gigs but they will be sharing on social media.

I've found our staging the last few years not arena friendly. Olly Alexander's box would have had lots of issues with lots of people in the area not being able to see him for much of the performance. It sounds like it was similar for Remember Monday. (We won't talk about the utterly pointless trumpets from another previous non Sam Ryder year)

There was one entry in Malmö that had similar issues which was really annoying. I think it was Kaleen We will rave (Austria). I really liked the song but there was this stage thing which meant you could see her for about half the song. It really takes away from the performance. Whereas good acts can have great visuals and costumes but don't need the props. (Cha cha cha is a good example - he had props for the performance when competing but when he has subsequently performed it as a returning artist he did and it didn't take away. If anything it was better. Europapa had great visuals but the actual staging was minimal and all about the costume and dance. Also see Baby Lasagna. Tbh Greece this year was a bit of a mess and had a pointless scooter as it was all over the place and wasn't relatively clean so to speak - it was trying too hard to be everything).

Bulgarias use of staging and chairs was great. It didn't take away. On the unrehearsed performance at the end she and the dancers briefly found a chair in the green room to do their routine before going onto the main stage. That performance should have won anyone who didn't think she was a deserving winner over. It was all so professional whilst they were all clearly bemused and winging it.

France are so desperate to win. Even they can't get it right.

Colonised. You mean created a penal colony, and massacred the traditional owners and carers of the land? That was well over 200 years ago, and things have changed a bit.

Australia has one of the most multicultural populations in the world. There's a massive Greek community in Melbourne, for starters - do you expect them to vote for the UK? One in five Australians speak a language other than English at home. Over 30% of the population were born overseas, and come from every part of the world. Nearly 50% have a parent born overseas. There are still pockets of English people, called "whinging Poms", but also there are over 300 different ancestries in Australia's population.

Personally I don't think Germany have won recently because of Brexit too. Oh wait. This is nonsense.

Germany has lots of Eurovision neighbours (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, Poland, Switzerland) and still only got 12 points. With none of those coming from the televote. The only neighbour that gave them jury points was Belgium (2 points).

That's almost worse isn't it? Their entry was really shit.

I was so disappointed last night. I really loved Finland’s entry and can’t understand why Bulgaria was so popular. To me it’s utter ten a penny, provincial night club fodder. Utterly forgettable tosh.

My other favourites were Norway, Italy and Sweden. My DH hated the Italian entry though, just goes to show how differently we can feel and enjoy the songs!

My all time favourite (recent’ish) winners are Måneskin (could watch their set over and over again) and Lordi. Quite liked Måns Zelmerlöw too.

I voted for the UK entry because I thought it was quirky and inventive and didn't want it to get no points. Not because your lot slaughtered many of my husband's ancestors. That would be weird.

No I mean we helped establish Australia as it is now. It is a flippant tongue-in-cheek post

But since indigenous people lived there for thousands of years before and suffered when we arrived, it seemed more appropriate to use the word colonised. That's what it was. Colonisation.

Typically it was read as approving of colonisation which I was simply stating as a fact of history.

Oh well

I don't know how else I could have better put it.