The Jet Set win Best group award

The Jet Set, the group that will represent Poland to the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, won the Best Polish Group award last night. The annual ceremony was held yesterday, 27th of April, in Poland, with The Jet Set performing live their Eurovision entry time to party live in front of their fans that have been there for support and in front of several famous international pop stars that participated to the show.
The ESKA Music awards is a famous annual show that attracts many pop stars from all over the world. Many international stars participated to the show including Jamelia, Razorlight, September, Jean Michel Jarre, ATB, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Infernal, Cloud Room, Monrose (German national final 2007) and many others, making the night more glamour than ever.
After The Jet Set performed their song live, they accepted the award for the Best Polish Group to huge applaudse. They are about to travel to Helsinki, with their first rehearsal on the 3rd of May. The Jet Set has to go through the semi-final cause Ich Troje didn’t make to the final in Athens last year, ending up 11th in the semi-finals.

Romania: Farewell party for Todomondo

Everything is ready forTodomondo, the six member band that will represent Romania in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, and TVR, the Romanian national television, is giving a party to wish them good luck in Helsinki.
The party will take place in “Bere cu caru" , one of the classiest and oldest beer bars located in the centre of Bucharest on Wednesday, the 2nd of May at 17:00 local time. Todomondo will be there with the entire Romanian delegation. The party will be full of surprises as well, such as karaoke contests. The Romanian entrants will be travelling to Helsinki the following days after the party for the contest having their first rehearsal on Monday, the 7th of May.

Sarbel's chat on ERT

The ERT chat with Sarbel online took place today. At 18:06 Sarbel appeared online and tried to asnwer the questions within a mess and a bomb of messages. Though maximum 34 users attended the chat. Sarbel said that the rehearsals for his choreography have began and they are going great according to him. There will be no instrument used to surprise as Helena did in 2005 but there will be something very 'warm' as he said. He also said he likes Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus from the 2007 entries and for his entry he said he hopes to rank well and hopes for the top ten. Responding to a Romanian fan he said he had great time during his visit in Bucharest. He informed us he will wear something 'Greek' in the Eurovision final. He also said he wanted to travel more but there was no time for him. At some point Sarbel is planning concerts in Germany, revealed to his fans. Of course insults on his sexuality took place and ERT's administrators banned the members who posted them. For at least 20 minutes no actual news or discussion was made rather than thanking his few online fans for their support.He also referred to his relation with ERT saying that everyone is great with him and invited everyone to watch ERT every day! (he didn't mention any specific preference on a TV show though). Regarding an international career Sarbel said that he is not moving from Greece to another country as he loves living here. His hobbies revealed to be swimming, tennis, windsurfing and girls. He said he gets great help from his experience with the Opera House and if he wasn't a singer he would want to be an animal doctor.Finally he said he is not nervous for Helsinki and he kept saying 'Yassou' to everyone with no more chat with his few fans online. Besides Greek fans there were fans from Poland, Romania, Cyprus, Serbia. At the end the online users send their positive energy for the best of luck to the artist and the Greek entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007.

Στην τελική ευθεία

Βρισκόμαστε πλέον στην τελική ευθεία για την φετινή Eurovision και το promo tour στη Ρουμανία ολοκληρώθηκε με μεγάλη επιτυχία. Τα μέσα ενημέρωσης έδειξαν ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον για τον Σαρμπέλ με πολλές συνεντεύξεις και ζωντανές εμφανίσεις στην κρατική τηλεόραση αλλά και σε ιδιωτικά κανάλια. Ο Σαρμπέλ εμφανίστηκε στο μεγαλύτερο τηλεοπτικό show της χώρας "SUPRISES SUPRISES", τραγούδησε το YASSOU MARIA και ενθουσίασε το κοινό. Επόμενες ζωντανές εμφανίσεις ήταν στην ζωντανή εκπομπή "DE 3 X FEMEIES" του τηλεοπτικού σταθμού ACASA TV και στο ψυχαγωγικό show "DANUTZ SRL" της κρατικής τηλεόρασης, όπου ο Σαρμπέλ εκτός από το YASSOU MARIA ερμήνευσε και την καινούρια του επιτυχία "Mi Chica". To promo tour τελειώνει εδώ, αφήνοντας τις καλύτερες εντυπώσεις. 'Ολες οι χώρες που επισκέφθηκε η ελληνική αποστολή έδειξαν πολύ μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον για το YASSOU MARIA και τον Σαρμπέλ ο οποίος αγαπήθηκε όχι μόνο από το τηλεοπτικό κοινό αλλά και από όσους τον γνώρισαν από κοντά. Επόμενο ραντεβού, στο Ελσίνκι! Καλή επιτυχία Σαρμπέλ!

Robe to light Eurovision 2007

Finland - Over 450 Robe moving lights will be utilised in a spectacular lighting design for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki which is being created by LD Mikki Kunttu.

This follows on from the successful 2005 ESC production in Kiev, which featured 350 Robe fixtures. Once again, the show's technical production manager is Ola Melzig, and the production company is Spectra from Sweden. Lighting equipment for the event, staged in Helsinki's 12,000 capacity Hartwall Areena is being supplied by locally based Eastway Oy, and the Robe units will be delivered directly to the show from the Czech Republic.

The ESC deal was cut with Robe's International sales manager Harry von den Stemmen, who comments, "This is take two for Robe at Eurovision, and it is really very exciting to be working with Ola and the Spectra team again. I caught a glimpse of Mikki's ideas for the show, during a start-up meeting, and they were very exciting. I am sure that the final design will look absolutely amazing."

Kunttu, who is working closely with Finnish national TV channel YLE on the show is also very pleased to be working with Robe. His rig will contain 120 ColorSpot 2500E ATs, 90 ColorWash 1200ATs, 120 ColorSpot 1200 ATs, 80 of the new ColorSpot 700E ATs, 60 ColorWash 250 ATs and 8 specially customised Robe Media Spinners that have been modified to hold Studio Due CS4 bars.

For the Green Room, Robe is also supplying 48 of its new StageQube 324 LED panels which will be used for mood lighting and ambient effects. GrandMA consoles will be used as lighting control for the show, which will be run via Ethernet - the most expedient option given the size of the event and the number of fixtures involved.

The load in commences on 17 April and the final is 12 May. Head moving light technician will be Dick Welland from the UK. The Robe fixtures on the show have all been sold to companies in the area and will be delivered to their new owners once the final notes are sung and played, the winner is declared and the de-rig is complete.

(Jim Evans)

Cyprus: RIK to air preview shows

The Eurovision 2007-Preview clips, the special show prepared by RIK, will start on 8th April and will continue until the 22nd. International Eurovision Song Contest experts will be commenting on each video clip and viewers will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite entry.

The shows will be presented by Marina Philippidou and Yannis Charalambous and directed by Klitos Klitou. Special provision has been made for international viewers who can watch the shows via RIK Satellite and the webcast provided. The show will be carried out in English and there will be subtitles in the Greek parts.There will be prizes to be won by lucky viewers, among them tickets for the semi final and final in Helsinki.

Airing dates and times:
April, 8, 14, 15, 21 and 22 at 21.15-22.00 local time (CET+1)

Satellite information RIK Sat:
Hotbird 3 (13E)-12265.00 V/27500 ¾

Live webcast will be provided here.

HS launches a postcard competition

YLE has been rather secretive about the postcards and Finns have been quite obsessive about the image they will project about Finland and Finns. Now the readers of Helsingin Sanomat can have their say on what Finland should show to Europe and rest of the world. A competition called Suomemme maa (Finland our country) has opened on HS website and the winner gets a trip to the Eurovision 2008 host city.

All we know about the real postcards so far is that there will be 52 of them, directed by various directors and that they are nearly finished. Those 40 second short films will show the host country Finland, its inhabitants and their- occasionally strange and odd habits- to the rest of the world. Finns, by nature very obsessed on what the others think about us, fear the worst, at least on various message boards and chats.

From this point of view Helsingin Sanomat gives its readers a chance to make a postcard the way they want Finland and Helsinki portrayed to foreigners. The competition is free to all Finnish amateurs and the postcards can be seen on the website where you can also leave your comments on them. There is a jury that follows the comments and picks up finalists. The jury includes Heikki Paasonen, the presenter of Euroviisut 2005-2007 and the host of the Finnish previews (first part tomorrow night on YLE2) as well as famous movie director Lauri Törhönen. The will be announced on May 10 and gets a trip for two to next year’s host city, wherever that will be!

Those who don’t have their own videocamera or cellphone can ask for help from Helsingin Sanomat’s street crews that will take over Helsinki in the coming days. The times and places where to find them will be published in Helsingin Sanomat in coming days.

“Eurovision is a historical and unusual event in Finland. We want to be part of it” says Kaius Niemi, one of the competition organizers. “Eurovision for Finns has become a matter of self respect and pride over the years, an open wound that seemed never to heal. We were wondering why we never succeeded when Norway and Turkey for example did it. This is a huge opportunity to present Finland and Finns, but I hope it won’t be done too seriously” Niemi concludes.

More information can be found here.