STV News reports that the Committee that will determine the host city for Eurovision 2023 is set to visit Glasgow on September 30.
A delegation from the BBC that will determine the host city for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 is set to visit Glasgow this Friday. Polly Bartlett from STV News reports that the Committee will be visiting the OVO Hydro as part of on-site assessments that are to be carried out in both of the cities in the final stages of the host city selection.
The OVO Hydro has a capacity of up to 14,500 standing audiences and was opened to the public in 2013. OVO Hydro was also used in the filming of the Eurovision movie, Eurovision The Story of Fire Saga, which saw a fictional Eurovision Song Contest take place in Edinburgh.
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland the fourth largest in the United Kingdom with a population of over 635,000 people. The city was a major trading hub during the Industrial Revolution and has now become a cultural hub. The city has hosted events such as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the European Championships in 2018.
Although Glasgow hasn’t hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in the past, they have in fact previously hosted the now defunct Eurovision Dance Contest back in 2008.
The EBU and the BBC have announced today that Glasgow and Liverpool are the final two cities in the running to host Eurovision 2023. The two cities were chosen from an initial list of seven shortlisted cities. The cities which were not selected were:
- Birmingham
- Leeds
- Manchester
- Newcastle
- Sheffield
The 2023 contest will be the first contest since 1979 in which the winning nation was unable to host the following contest. It is the sixth occasion overall on which a different country has hosted after the original host nation was unable to, following the Netherlands in 1960, France in 1963, Monaco in 1972, Luxembourg in 1974, Israel in 1980 and Ukraine in 2023. The 2023 contest will also extend the United Kingdom’s record of hosting Eurovision to nine times.
Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with the song “Stefania”. It was Ukraine’s third victory in the contest’s history.
Image Source: Ian Dick, Wikimedia | Source: STV