After Alexander Rybak won the 54th Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow with the song Fairytale, Europe's favourite TV-show travels to Oslo, Norway. The 2010 running takes place at the brand new Telenor Arena, which offers 90.000 spectators the opportunity to watch all the finals live.
After more than half a century, featuring over 1,100 songs, the Eurovision contest is an event that enjoys huge popularity. It has been broadcast every year since 1956, without interruption, which makes it one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. Today it is a global event providing opportunities to make intercultural communication and contact. In the last few years, the competition has not only been broadcasted throughout Europe, but also in countries that do not participate, such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Korea, New Zealand and the United States.
In Australia, the tv-station SBS presents broad coverage of the show. SBS broadcasts both semi-finals as well as the main final over three days. With one final each night from Friday to Sunday, SBS is making the coming weekend into a full Eurovision weekend.
In Canberra, Eurovision 2010 is celebrated with a charity event, showing the main final on two big screens. Over 100 people will gather to see the hosts Erik Solbakken and Haddy N'jie open the show and welcome over 125 million viewers from across Europe and around the world. The Norwegian Embassy in Canberra is sponsoring the event and will be present at the celebration.
Oslo is also celebrating and welcoming all the glitter and glamour of the Eurovision circus. During the Eurovision weekend there will be concerts and shows in every corner of the host city.
Either you love it or hate it: the 55th Eurovision Song Contest held in Oslo, Norway, will surely add some glitter to the coming weekend.