Terminal 3.... The Eurovision Blog

Is it really just over 4 months since we were all either glued to the tv watching the Eurovision Song Contest or, as in my case, in the arena. What a fantastic experience it was and for me probably the best contest I have been to since 2007 which was my first one and even now still holds a very special place in my heart and always will. In Helsinki I met my fellow blogger Colin who is one of my closest friends and in Dusseldorf I met so many new friends that I know will be lifelong friends and I am looking forward to seeing them all at the OGAE UK Eurobash in a couple of weeks. Now going back to Dusseldorf!!! The highlights for me were Italy coming second and for a short time I seriously thought we were going to Rome next year........ however, Baku it will be. Not my favourite winner and I certainly didnt see it winning! However they have ploughed so much money into winning it, it was likely to happen!! My winner was of course Italy............ jazz and blues have never be...

Some good rumours coming out of Bosnia & Herzegovina at the moment.  Apparently, the 2006 entrant Hari Mata Hari who finished in 3rd place with Lejla has been approached to return to Eurovision in 2012.   There is no news at the moment as to whether he will take up the offer, but it can only be good news for Eurovision if he does considering the quality of his 2006 song. I for one will be following developments closely on this one and will update you as and when there is further news.   Until then, you can watch his 2006 entry via the link below......

Loyalty is a something rarely seen in the music business these days, especially when Eurovision is in the mix.   However, it's good to see that Lena Meyer-Landrut has not turned her back on Eurovision after winning in 2010! Not only did she return to defend her title, she now wants to help Germany select next year's entry and hasn't ruled out being in Baku next year herself.  Sorry to all fans though, she wants to be a tourist next year... not a participant! :-(

After receiving Terminal 3's open letter requesting a change in the televoting system, the EBU accepted our argument and have changed the televoting so that you can only vote after all performances have been completed.  They have given an excuse that they looked at the trends in voting and it showed that most people voted after the performances. But we all know the proper reason don't we!!! LOL

I still cannot believe that I was in the arena 3 weeks ago today as the first semi final had finished and a group of us were heading for The Monkey Club to party the night away!!!! What a semi final that was............ Poland getting last place, Norway, Turkey and Armenia not qualifying.............. though to be honest I am not suprised and no matter how many people say there was technical problems that night I still think the best 10 songs went through and even Georgia has started to grow on me since the show. My biggest suprise from the week was how badly some of the pre contest favourites did............. UK, France, Estonia and Hungary to name a few. My personal favourite was Italy and I was overjoyed that Raphael Gualazzi took them to that coveted 2nd place, even though I was convinced that with 3 votes to go Italy were gonna pip Azerbaijan to the post. I did say (though not on here) that Azerbaijan would be Top 5, but honestly never saw it as the winner........... I think they ...

So two weeks have passed since this year's contest and we can already start looking forward to next year. Switzerland are the first to confirm entry to next year's contest, quickly followed unofficially by Finland who have announced that they are changing the selection process for next year's contest. Israel's participation is in doubt as the preliminary dates for next year clash with a religious holiday in Israel.  They appear to have asked for the contest to be moved to a different week to allow them to participate, but whether this request will be accepted is still to be seen. Azerbaijan have also started planning for the contest and have arranged a group of influential people to organise it.  It appears that Baku will be the host and at present, there are three possible sites for the contest.  One of the options being to build a whole new venue.  It is believed that more details will be available after a meeting on 20th June.

Dear Mr. Sand, For many years, the Eurovision Song Contest has entertained millions upon millions of viewers across Europe and now the world.  Bringing European countries together to celebrate European music is no mean feat, but year upon year, you manage to put out a show to enthral us. Criticism over "political" or "neighbourly" voting increased year upon year as more and more Eastern European countries joined the contest on the break up of their countries.  Eurovision became synonymous with bad voting influencing the result and many countries criticised you for it.  I, myself, feel that Eurovision wouldn't be the same without some of the "neighbourly" voting and have grown up to love the voting and the show. However, to the EBU's credit, you then decided to tackle it and changed the voting system in the semi-finals and introduced 50% professional jury votes for all.  These changes were welcome and people started believing in Eurovision aga...

Eurovision in the United Kingdom has a love/hate relationship with the general public. Speak to many people about the subject, and after they have joked about it they will admit to never missing it. Eurovision has been the butt of jokes for many years in the UK and was probably fuelled by Sir Terry Wogan, who's commentary of the show for the BBC was always full of ridicule. It also hasn't helped that the big music artists of the UK won't go anywhere near Eurovision. Partly because they don't need to for success and also because failure could mean the end of their careers. Recently, the UK entrants have been a group of nobodies who have quickly disappeared once their participation was over. What changed for this year? Well I think it was down to Germany's success last year. For many years, Germany had been down in the lower reaches of the final placings chart just like the UK. They entered a good song and wow, they won! Could this signal that the tide wa...

Well it's the day after Eurovision day!  Eurovision 2011 is in the history books and it's time to look back at the contest and look forward to next year.  I suppose today is the day that every Eurovision fan dreads..... the hangover from yesterday and it's the longest point until next years contest! Hee Hee I have to say that I really enjoyed last night show and I think it was one of the strongest finals in recent years.  This was obviously reflected in the scoring, which was very close up until the last few juries.  So lets start off with talking about the presentation of the show....  As far as I'm concerned, the German's didn't really do a good job of presentation.  There was a lot of "padding out" of the show which it really didn't need.  The comic punch reappeared from the semi-final even though it looked stupid in the semi.  I also think that Anke and Stefan were trying to hog the limelight a bit too much and left Judith out. After all, ...

Tonight it's...... JEDWARD!!!!! Yes tonight the rest of Europe will be introduced to Jedward.  Twins John and Edward, born in Dublin, Ireland first came to the public's attention when they took part in the 2009 British tv show "The X Factor".  The British public had a love/hate relationship with them, but they still managed to finish sixth that year. Since that time, they have been dropped by Sony after just one single release which got to no.2 in the UK and no.1 in Ireland.  After being signed up by Universal Records, they have gone on to get a no.1 album in Ireland (no. 17 in UK) and are now representing their own country Ireland this year. The twins are a high energy act and put a lot into their performance.  The song is very catchy and I think it will do really well.  Being one who didn't like Jedward when they were on the X Factor, I did question the Irish thinking when they picked them, but I think their gamble may pay off with qualification to the fin...

Well, semi final one is now history and it's nearly time for bed, but before I go to bed I thought I would pass on my initial thoughts on the show. Overall, I think the performances were poor.  There was a lot of nervous performances which affected the singers' voices.  Biggest disappointment for me was the performance of Azerbaijan, who going into the semi tonight was my favourite song.  They will have to perform better if they want to be in with a shout on Saturday as their song certainly deserves a top 5 finish. As for who has qualified, I don't think there were really any surprises.  The songs that qualified either gave a good performance, had a good song or would have been expecting to qualify through "friendly" voting.  I didn't expect the Swiss to qualify and I didn't expect Turkey not to get through on the "friendly" voting at least.   The worst song qualifying for me tonight was Greece. Finally, the stage and backgrounds looked fan...

So it's one hour until this years contest starts.... Semi final one is on it's way at 20:00hrs!!! Really looking forward to getting it started!  Score sheets have been printed and the phone is ready to be taken off the hook. I'm particularly looking forward to watching my two favourites for this semi from the CD, Azerbaijan and Hungary.  Hopefully, they will be as good on stage. During the show, I'll be tweeting via the Terminal 3 twitter account, which you can access at http://twitter.com/#!/T3Eurovision. If you want to join in a conversation, please feel free to send mentions via @T3Eurovision. Hope you all enjoy the show!  Let us know what you thought after the show via our comments system!

Well, it has been a fab few days in Dusseldorf............. well it has according to the other blogs and facebook updates and photos and videos and websites. Again, as I did the other day I would like to thank them for keeping me up to date on the rehearsals. Now for me Semi 1 was an easy mission to choose 10 to go through. However, Semi Final 2 is a little bit harder. Based upon the rehearsals I have seen online my 10 going through are (in no particular order):- Austria - a fabulous song and for me the best ballad in the contest......... very much in the vain of Mariah Carey Bosnia & Herzegovina - A classic song with a very catchy chorus and Dino comes across as such a gentleman Bulgaria - Soft Rock at its best......... even though I have no idea what she is singing. I believe this is the best of this genre in this years contest Ireland - the wonderful Jedward, who just seem to be bringing a little something extra to this years contest. Not sure its an overall winner but woul...

Bosnia & Herzegovina - A nice catchy tune to start this semi-final.  A strong beat and loads of support from the music track.  Background vocals compliment the lead vocals well.  A good song performed well.  May suffer from performing first.  7/10   Austria -  A strong vocalist and a strong ballad if her voice holds up with the nerves. 6/10 The Netherlands - I think this song is more of an album filler rather than an attention grabber.  Doesn't hold my attention enough and an early position could spell doom for The Netherlands yet again.  4/10 Belgium - Thought I was listening to Latvia's Cosmos from 2006 again!  They didn't do well and neither will Belgium! 2/10 Slovakia - Nice song, similar in style to the American trio Wilson Phillips.  As I like Wilson Phillips, I also like this song.  6/10 Ukraine - For me, Ukraine have sent really interesting songs for the last five years. Unfortunately, this year, I ...

Well its been an interesting few days for me. My annual leave has started from my job but I wont arrive in Dusseldorf until next Tuesday 10th May following a brief trip to Brussels on the way. However I have been watching the rehearsals on the internet since Sunday and I would like to wish my friends and fellow bloggers that are in Dusseldorf a very big HELLO. Anyway after watching the first sets of rehearsals from semi 1 in no particular order I believe the 10 going through............ not sure whether to write should be, would be, want to be or will be????!!!! Ok my 10 favourites whom I believe should go through are:- Iceland Finland San Marino Serbia Switzerland Azerbaijan Russia Poland Norway Turkey However, I do think that with the voting that Greece, Armenia and Albania could sneak in. And as I hear a cry from the audience.......... "No Hungary!!!!" Yes I know however as much as I do like the song and it is in my personal Top 10 favourites of this year I do believe...

Hi,  Terminal 3 now has it's own Twitter profile.   If you'd like to follow us there, here is our profile page.... http://twitter.com/#!/T3Eurovision During Eurovision week, we'll be posting quick tweets there, so keep checking Twitter!

Hello and welcome to Terminal 3's preview of this year's contest which is rapidly approaching us!  By now, hopefully most will have listened to the songs in some way or other.  Well, here at Terminal 3, I've been doing the same and I've noted down my thoughts on the songs. Let's start with Tuesday's Semi final one.  Please remember that these are my own opinions on the songs, which can and probably will differ from other's views.  I've rated them all out of 10 for you and then at the bottom, I state who I'd like to see go through to the final on the 15th May. Poland – Pop beat. Singer has a good strong voice .   Gets a bit repetitive by the end of the song.   4/10   Norway – I like it!   First thing you have to do with this song is check the country it came from again, as Norway isn’t one I’d expect.   Nice African tones to the song which makes it a pleasant song to listen to.   However whether it’s a song to go far in Eurovision ...

For months, we have been told that the final on the 14th May is sold out and no tickets are available.  However, a visit to the official ticket site (http://www2.dticket.de/) shows a totally different story. It seems that you can get tickets for any of the shows, so if you want to be in the crowd next week you certainly can. I really can't understand why they are not advertising this to sell out properly!!

As from tomorrow, Terminal 3 will start previewing next week's contest. Who will qualify from semi-final 1? 2?  Will any of the big five win? If you have any thoughts, feel free to share them!  Get in touch and you're thoughts will be incorporated into the blog entries!

So with the official cd out, in the UK at least, have you started forming your favourite songs yet?  Do you think that they have a chance to win? To help you along, here is what a selection of British Bookies make of this year's contest...... Current favourite with all bookies is France.  The best odds you can get for them is 4/1, which for the less familiar of us out there means that if you place a £1 bet, you will get your stake money back and £4.  Most bookies however have them at either 9/2 or 7/2. 2nd favourite, again with all bookies is Estonia.  Totesport and Boylesports will give you odds of 7/1 at the moment, with the worst odds being with Betfred at 11/2. 3rd favourite is the UK, but then British bookies always place the UK high.  Best odds are with Boylesports and bwin.com who will offer you 10/1.  Lowest is Coral who have the UK at 6/1. 4th favourite, but sometimes joint 3rd with the UK is Sweden.  With odds ranging from 8/1 to 11...

Hello, and welcome back to all! First off, let me apologise on behalf of both Paul and I for not posting for a year!  A few reasons caused the hiatus, but we are now back energised and ready for this year's contest! Quite a lot has happened since we last posted!  The 2010 contest was an excellent one and it was refreshing to see a winner that bucked the trend of recent years in that a big four song won that hadn't qualified from the semi-final and also a "western Europe" country won.  I think it was a stellar year for songs - so many good songs which I am still enjoying to this day! My favourites in 2010 start with Tom Dice who represented Belgium.  I just love the simplicity of the song with as the title suggests... just Tom and his guitar!  It was also good to see him giving his all when singing the song.  It was also good to see Niamh Kavanagh return to Eurovision, continuing the trend of past winners returning for another go.   A bit o...

To all our followers! Sorry we've neglected you for a year, but Terminal 3 will be back..... tomorrow!!!!!! Previewing this year's contest and anything else you want us to cover!