Live from Eurovision: Six months of preparation for the Greatest Show on Earth By Adrian Pennington
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 - 10:21
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Eurovision: The greatest show on Earth
When the elements align, as they did so powerfully last May, it's easy to see why the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) can justifiably be called the greatest show on Earth.
Last year's winners Ukraine's Kalush Orchestra delivered a hymn to love and longing and the cherished memories of happier times, broadcast live from Turin to more than 160 million people.
With Russia's illegal invasion continuing, the EBU and Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC agreed that the contest could not safely be staged - as is tradition - in the winning country. Instead, after a number of countries expressed an interest in staging the event, the EBU invited the United Kingdom, which finished in second place with Sam Ryder's anthemic Space Man, to host on behalf of Ukraine. From an opening field of 20 towns and cities across the UK, Liverpool's bid was chosen as the winner in a run-off with Glasgow.
A UNESCO City of Music', Liverpool is celebrating the 65th anniversary of its twinning with the Ukrainian city of Odesa, just a year after the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. The ESC is also the longest-running annual international televised music competition in the world.
It is the biggest live music event in the world by audience and no other show attempts live voting on this scale, says Lennard Bartlett, project leader at Eurovision Services. There's no other show like it that's for sure.
The Eurovision Song Contest is a much anticipated musical event across the world
Flawless delivery
No pressure then to deliver it all flawlessly, a task which in large part rests on his shoulders.
As a provider to the EBU, Eurovision's technical services has two primary responsibilities for each ESC: production of the voting sequence and the distribution of the content globally.
It's quite a feat of technical infrastructure and coordination to make it go smoothly. It is always a little bit nerve wracking to be honest when you are trying to bring up these 37 signals and talk to 37 studios and get them to do what we need
On the first, Bartlett explains: We organise the contribution from the studios of all 37 participating countries over our network of satellite, fibre and IP into our MCR in Liverpool (supplied by NEP).
We coordinate all those signals, we produce them and individually talk to each country to make sure they're prepared. We then sequentially switch those through to the BBC OB.
This is the ninth time the BBC has hosted the Contest and the fourth time it's hosted on behalf of another broadcaster. This year the team at BBC Studios is producing the three live shows from the Liverpool Arena.
A key element of the Contest's televised formula is the voting. This is a complex formula in its own right and involves the audience in participating countries using the official app (or by telephone and/or SMS) to register their favourites. This year this is extended to viewers watching around the world can from non-participating countries (like the US).
On top of this there are the results of a professional jury appointed by the broadcaster in each of the 37 countries taking part. During the grand final, at the end of the televoting window, the results of each national jury are presented live, one by one, by a spokesperson in each participating country and appear on a scoreboard. During this time, the EBU, its voting partner digame and independent voting observers from E&Y will count and verify the audience results.
For the crucial live jury voting sequence, Eurovision Services ensures that, any one time, the BBC OB is only receiving a main and a back-up signal from Eurovision Services.
We just handing off the clean signals we receive from the studio. All insertion and graphics is done by the BBC. We are constantly in contact with the BBC and the EBU to make sure that runs as smoothly as possible.
Everything is rehearsed twice for the Eurovision Song Contest. Seen here, the Eurovision OVB compound
Well-oiled machine
This is Bartlett's first year as project manager in charge of the Eurovision Services team but he has shadowed on previous ESCs. For me it's a new challenge but every year we learn how we can improve it. It is a well-oiled machine.
It is the biggest by audience live music event in the world and no other show attempts live voting on this scale. The real challenge is to ensure we're using technology that mitigates any threat to signal security
He continues, It's quite a feat of technical infrastructure and coordination to make it go smoothly. It is always a little bit nerve wracking to be honest when you are trying to bring up these 37 signals and talk to 37 studios and get them to do what we need. Technically and from a coordination perspective that's a real challenge.
It's not quite as nail biting as would have been when my colleagues were doing this five to10 years ago. Not that long ago we only used to have a very limited number of satellite channels to bring voting feeds up and down rapidly and that would often be quite a challenge. Now there are more methods at our disposal.
But still from my experience shadowing last year it is still quite tense.
They rehearse twice. Once on the Friday evening and again on the Saturday afternoon (dress rehearsal 2 and dress rehearsal 3) but with fake results.
We prepare all the country spokespeople and we try to do it exactly as we do it on the live final. We learn every year exactly how we need to tweak things and we communicate well in advance with all 37 countries in terms of the precise sequence of events that will happen on both the dress rehearsals and the night
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Live from Eurovision: Six months of preparation for the Greatest Show on Earth By Adrian Pennington 
