Eurovision 2020 & The Corona Virus

[LesterESC]

Hey guys,

So I wanted to see what you guys think. Postponing the contest to later this year?
Stick to May but leaving the audience? Cancellation?!

I actually live in The Netherlands and I made a short video to just tell you guys a little more about whats currently going on in our country.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

 

[LastDreamer]

Cancel Eurovision 2020.

 

[Daybreak]

Hey guys,

So I wanted to see what you guys think. Postponing the contest to later this year?
Stick to May but leaving the audience? Cancellation?!

I actually live in The Netherlands and I made a short video to just tell you guys a little more about whats currently going on in our country.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

Hi! I watched this video, it's interesting to get a perspective of someone who's from the Netherlands. We do have a thread on this already though, in the Politics Forum, and the mods seem to want any discussion on the coronavirus to be limited to that thread.

https://www.escunited.com/forum/threads/coronavirus-covid-19.19721/unread

 

[Mrm]

Cancel Eurovision 2020.

I bought plane tickets!

 

[Neo]

South Korea has through a massive testing scheme of around 200 000 people found out that the real mortality rate of Covid19 is around 0.6% which is far away from the 3-4% that's used as basis for today's panic measures.

Of course it's more than seasonal flu's 0.1 - 0.2%, but that's also partly due to the fact that older people get flu shots.

So no need to go overboard here. At worst drop the live audience. 99% will anyway watch it on TV.

 

[CPV4931]

Having tickets I hope for "Stick to May" with audience, but being realistic, it will be held without audience or cancelled. Can´t see Eurovision being postponed with all the artists and delegations from different countries being involved and a location, that has to be blocked for almost two month.

 

[mauve]

I bought plane tickets!

Don't you get your tickets back? My brother travels between two cities here in Germany. He would have traveled next week and now camceled it. He got ALL his money back actually. The virus turns our lives inside out. I could cry. I was looking forward to ESC so much ...

 

[Mrm]

Don't you get your tickets back? My brother travels between two cities here in Germany. He would have traveled next week and now camceled it. He got ALL his money back actually. The virus turns our lives inside out. I could cry. I was looking forward to ESC so much ...

I don't want to cancel it now..
I payed 90 euros, so I won't loose much anyway..
It is on low coast Dutch company, the lowest non refundable fare..

 

[mauve]

I don't want to cancel it now..
I payed 90 euros, so I won't loose much anyway..
It is on low coast Dutch company, the lowest non refundable fare..

I can understand it, Mrm ... noone of us here wants it to be canceled ...

 

[Puma11]

Honestly, I don't know what's worse.


No audience? Terrible.

Pre-recorded song in their own studios? Even more terrible.

Cancel it? Super terrible but I don't think it's an option.


I just love that period of reherseals, when they're all together and when we have interviews with them. I mean, take that from me and you can take whole ESC, I don't care. It's already ruined for me.
Same goes for pre-parties which is my favourite part of the year but as it seems, everything will be cancelled.

All this makes me depressive.



I know it's complicated but best option is to postpone it, so we'll have normal show and normal pre-parties.

 

[Citelis]

It's not that simple to postpone it.

 

[Ezio]

I don't want to cancel it now..
I payed 90 euros, so I won't loose much anyway..
It is on low coast Dutch company, the lowest non refundable fare..

If you bought non-refundable tickets in good faith, then the airlines has to refund you the money in case of imposed travel restrictions or even travel alerts that are issued after you bought your tickets. Also your credit card may cover for the risk.

I am getting refunded 1.700 € for a trip to US.

 

[Mrm]

If you bought non-refundable tickets in good faith, then the airlines has to refund you the money in case of imposed travel restrictions or even travel alerts that are issued after you bought your tickets. Also your credit card may cover for the risk.

I am getting refunded 1.700 € for a trip to US.

Yes, but it is only if they cancel the flight, if I cancel now I don't have right to ask for money..

 

[Ezio]

I am actually in favour of postponing Eurovision to May 2021.

 

[Ezio]

Yes, but it is only if they cancel the flight, if I cancel now I don't have right to ask for money..

If Eurovision is cancelled, you would of course not be entitled for a refund. But if Serbia issues a travel ban from Serbia to Netherlands for safety concern, then you can claim your money. This is what happened to me two days ago when Trump issued a travel ban for Schengen Zone member states. I e-mailed to my hotel which I booked with a non-refundable rate and they already paid me back all. American Airlines is very busy answering calls, but I suppose they will refund me as well, since I have already asked them about procedures just in case two weeks ago.

 

[Mrm]

If Eurovision is cancelled, you would of course not be entitled for a refund. But if Serbia issues a travel ban from Serbia to Netherlands for safety concern, then you can claim your money. This is what happened to me two days ago when Trump issued a travel ban for Schengen Zone member states. I e-mailed to my hotel which I booked with a non-refundable rate and they already paid me back all. American Airlines is very busy answering calls, but I suppose they will refund me as well, since I have already asked them about procedures just in case two weeks ago.

Yeah, I get it...
I think I won't cancel the ticket now...
And we can't compare the amount I payed to that one you paid..

 

[VikingTiger]

I am quite sure the Eurovision will NOT go on as planned. Even having all the artists gathered in Rotterdam might be a problem. But I am still hoping for the show to go on as "normal" - without an audience. Another alternative I guess would be live broadcasting where all the participants broadcast live from a studio in their own country.
Changing the dates? I cant really see that happen...
I have plane tickets - and Airbnb. But as for now I am banned to even leave the Nordic region, so probably I wont even be able to go there...

 

[Gitte]

I hope it will be postponed. If we want a nice contest with the right atmosphere (audience, all in one place) that's necessary. Performing without an audience is cold and awkward for the artists, and doing it in different studios means they aren't playing with the same cards (aka unfair - the studio abilities of sweden versus for example moldova???) postponing it to a later date where it will just go like planned would be best. And mayeb make september esc month from then on. But of course, with all the complexities and organisation involved in such a big event, that might also be tricky, and some artists might be annoyed at the longer waiting time and withdraw. Maybe they should just let it go on like usual but intensively coronatest and check everyone entering the venue and have very strict hygiene and personal space guidelines. And who knows, maybe things are nearly back to normal in may.

 

[4815162342]

I am actually in favour of postponing Eurovision to May 2021.

With the same artists and songs? You think everyone who is available now will be available then?

 

[A-lister]

I think they should try to postpone it, until the summer or end of summer and have an audience if it's going to be possible.

Cancel it, postponing it to next year or having this odd scenario where entries compete from local national studios (which will look awful and give an unfair advantage to those countries which can put more money into it) are not options in my world.

Plan B would be to host it without audience in May, but travel restrictions might have not been lifted by then nor crowd restrictions, so acts might not be able to enter Netherlands anyways and even without an audience you still need some hundreds of people working with staging and production plus the delegations.

I think with countries like my own that do absolutely nothing to stop spreading the virus, and the fact that it will take at least half a year to achieve some sort of vaccine, we will have to admit that having an arena packed with audience in May looks unlikely, I doubt Netherlands are as stupid as Sweden and want to put people unnecessarily at risk.