A Belated Look Back at EUROfiasco 2021

Got to admit, we did consider adjusting the datestamp on this post to make it at least look like we had posted within, y'know, relatively short order of Eurovision 2021. Instead of 7 months (to the day!) since the final. But a wave of honesty came over us and here we are. At least it's the same calendar year!

Suffice to say that - despite the best efforts of Covid - EUROfiasco was a marvellous success. Yes it was a little different, but none the worse for it. We had our Festival EUROfiasco - a hybrid virtual/in person set of events - which meant we could work within the rules and managed to get some folk together - outside during the day, and then indoor groups of six in the evening. It worked well! Obviously we would rather have all stayed together, but WhatsApp, Zoom and booze kept us spiritually connected across the night.

A big thank you to everyone who came and gave it their all despite the challenges, whether in person or online - it made for a fantastic day! And it was wonderful to have a real Eurovision to watch again, with an audience in the arena who were going for it too. 

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Big congrats to our prize winners btw - have added that as a separate post below - which is a copy and paste of the WhatsApp correspondence but it makes it look we were organised enough and we, y'know, posted at the time.

Briefly then (as many others have written more, and more importantly contemporaneously): what of the result? Well, even though Italy didn't really work for us musically, we have to doff our cap to Måneskin's win and their absolutely phenomenal global success since. It's beautiful to see, and it feels like Eurovision has turned a corner in the profile that it's given to the band. BRIT & Grammy nominated. Two simultaneous UK top 10 singles. And so on. All while Duncan Laurence also climbed up the Billboard Hot 100 too, two years on from his win. 

Wouldn't it be marvellous if this changed at least a few attitudes in the UK about what Eurovision is and what it can offer? We'll see what the new TaP partnership can offer. At the very least the guy running it is married to a Eurovision presenter so you've got to believe there's some enthusiasm there! (And while we were obviously sorry to see James come last... unfortunately it wasn't a massive surprise as the performance and staging underwhelmed and the old cliche about getting run over in the middle of the road is a truism. The song at least keeps popping up on the telly - it is a nice radio bop - but we need more than that to do better!).

Of our Top 10? Well, 5 made it to the final and 5 bowed out. And of those, Iceland came 4th and Greece 10th - the rest bobbed around elsewhere. The Flag-Waving favourite of Croatia was the biggest shock non-qualifier of course! And poor Ireland suffered from the opposite issue to the UK, complex staging that left its main protagonist and the viewer knackered.

What will 2022 bring? Well, as we type, we're in a different slightly bleaker place than we were back in May - when we were just about take the next step of restriction easing. Now we're wondering whether there's a lockdown coming, and indeed What The Future Holds. Turin has been announced as the home of Eurovision 2022 and it would be fab to be there - but right now we are keeping all options open as to what may happen. The national final season has already started meanwhile - and in a few weeks time the Nordic fun starts with Norway and Sweden getting underway. It's time to get back on the Fiasco Fun Train!