Throwback to Oslo – Eurovision 2010
Following the victory of Alexander Rybak and his song “Fairytale” in Moscow, it was now the turn for Norway to show their hosting skills for the 2010 contest. That edition of the contest was the 55th edition. It also was the first time Norway hosted the contest since 1996.
Although the contest’s host city is remembered by the majority of the contest’s fans as Oslo, the venue of the contest, the Telenor Arena was located in Bærum, a city neighbouring with the Norwegian capital. This happened due to the lack of ability of the Oslo Spektrum to host due to his size and capacity. This was also the case for the Valhall in Oslo and the Vikingskipet in Hamar.
The theme art for that year consisted of intersecting circles. These were used as a symbol of gathering people and the diversity of emotions surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest. The postcards consisted of a few parts. In the first part, an ensemble of balls created the shape of the upcoming country. This was followed by a pre-recorded video of a crowd from the same country cheering for their entry (Usually recorded in the country’s capital). A small video of the artists getting ready on stage was then shown followed by the country’s flag made out of balls. In some cases, the country’s shape was a subject of dispute as to the areas of Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Israel weren’t shown completely as the some of these countries’ lands are considered an area of dispute. The contest’s slogan for that year was “Share the moment”.
In order to get the live shows going NRK appointed three hosts. This was the highest number of hosts per show since 1999 (The 2009’s contest had four hosts. Yet, each of the shows was given two hosts per show). The hosts were the Norwegian TV presenter Erik Solbakken, Norwegian singer and journalist Haddy Jatou N’jie, and TV presenter Nadia Hasnaoui. The first two hosted the shows and guided the viewers through the green room while Nadia only presented the voting and scoreboard announcements.
The voting structure went through another modification as the EBU announced that the final vote would be made out of 50% jury voting and 50% televoting. Additionally, the top 10 ranking countries in each Semi-Final were announced the qualifiers. This comes in opposition with the format used between 2008 and 2009 where the top 9 countries were announced qualifiers from each Semi-Final in addition to the 10th qualifier being a country given the juries’ wildcard in each of the Semi-Finals.
A possible return of the orchestra was considered at first. Yet, this idea didn’t come to life and that edition was no different of all the editions since 1999 which did not include an orchestra.
With Georgia coming back after its one-year absence due to political issues with their 2009 entry and with Austria, Montenegro, Hungary, Czech Republic and Andorra withdrawing, the contest had 39 countries confirming their participation. Each Semi-Final had 17 countries competing in it. Belgium would qualify to the final for the first time since they automatically qualified in 2004. Cyprus will perform in the final for the first time since their automatic qualification in 2005. On the other hand, Sweden will see its first (And last to date) failure to qualify to the final.
At the end of the voting in the Grand Final, Germany was crowned as the winner of the contest represented by Lena and her song “Satellite”. It got 246 points out of which 9 votes were 12 points. The runner up Turkey only got 170 points with 3 votes of 12 points. Romania would once again get to third place. This is the country’s highest-ranking to date having gotten to it once before in 2005. Although being the winners of the OGAE poll, Denmark would be ranked fourth in the Grand Final. OGAE poll runner up, Israel will finish the night of the Grand final ranking 14th with no 12 points awarded.
Watch the voting and winning performance here:
Which memories do you have from Oslo? Share your moments with us!