I report this without prejudice and without drawing inferences. The news around the press centre is that Semi 1 commercial breaks will appear between Belgium and Azerbaijan at songs 6-7, and between Greece and Russia at songs 18-19.
The latter is causing some controversy, but given the various options available in the Russia/Greece stand-off, I can’t see any that would be more desirable.
a) One delegation is denied use of the huge prop which is pivotal to their entire choreography – unfair on that delegation.
b) Both delegations are denied use of their huge props – unfair on those two relative to the other 17
c) The production team cuts to a long-shot of the crowd for two minutes while they finish the changeover on stage – extremely fair to everyone, but not great telly…
I assume that Greece were offered the trade-off – you can either have your full staging, but be after commercials, or you can have a cut-down staging and *not* be after commercials. A difficult call, and I think they’ve made the right call.
It’s a pity, certainly, that being immediately after commercials seems to be a major draw disadvantage – and having only one song after the ad break is going to look bloody weird.
I fully expect a Kalodima rule to be introduced for 2009, limiting the size/weight/quantity of props that an act can use. It’s one of those silly accidents-waiting-to-happen that you only quite take on board once they actually *have* happened.
I’ll probably regret this, but I’ll leave the comments open on this one…