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Well, we did it. After six weeks of carefully worded reviews and a week of shuttling around almost everywhere within driving range that isn’t Basel, we’ve made it into the media centre.
I say “we”. As I’m sure you know by now, Mr Phil has been unable to join us this time round and is borrowing my old Thunderbird 5 outfit. It suddenly strikes me that Mo is also in possession of my old Thunderbird 5 outfit – I really hope it’s stretchy.
So the onsite OnEurope delegation is just me this year, lord help us all, though with excellent logistical and moral support being provided by our colleagues from Eurovision Ireland and All Out Eurovision.
The specialised media bit, in which we’re all in, is un peu bijou and might get cramped later on – by my very rough-and-ready maths, I think there’s seating for 84 in this bit. That’s OK! We’ve improvised coverage from a hotel room in Koln with basically no access to anything whatsoever before now. When life gives you lemons, drink Fanta and all that.
(Mr Phil would like to interject here – Apparently you *can* sit in the big old press bit after all – first day miscommunications and all!)
Otherwise it all seems to be very manageable. We have screens, we have Swiss plug sockets (I have a UK power strip of my own which doesn’t seem to work, so well done me on that one), we have beanbags. As I write it’s coming up to 11:00 local time, and nothing at all is scheduled until a media briefing at 13:30, but I suspect that even at this kind of quiet time we’re not allowed to take any kind of photo footage. Instead of painting a picture I’ll have to give you a thousand words.
Enough about me and the working area. We have arena access to the first technical rehearsal at 3:30 this afternoon, though no live blogging or photography, so I’ll be aiming to provide a little impressionist vignette review after the event. This pleases me in some ways – I really like the word vignette.
What can I tell you about the venue generally? So far we’ve been able to drive in and park reasonably nearby, though that may change as the week progresses. It’s very, very close to a tram stop, so public transport is likely to be straightforward for those who are coming. Directions are all very clear and efficient. We’re opposite a shopping centre with a couple of supermarkets and a pop-up merchandise shop which looks like it’ll be opening for business in the near future.
Basically – after all the closed rehearsals and peeps behind the curtain – Eurovisionia 2025 is finally about to open its doors to the wider public. And I, for one, can’t wait!