Eurovision in your hometown

Growing up, Eurovision gave me the chance to leave a small living room in a small house in a small town, and escape into the wider, wilder and weirder world.

With the advent of the internet, it became so much more. A connection to a whole community. Which brought with it diversity - of backgrounds, ages and experiences - yet also familiarity through our shared passion.

While my memories around the contest begin around ASFE 1993, voting for Love City Groove in 1995, hearing my family say that Norway ‘cheated’ to earn hosting rights in 1996 (not enough lyrics?), it was following Eurovision 1997 that I became a fan.

A not insignificant part of the magic of Eurovision is in the ‘right to host’ for the winner. In 1998, the idea that this internationally renowned event was within reach only heightened the excitement and my brother promised to take me in 1998.

While that never materialised, I finally made it to a contest in Oslo in 2010.

Another ‘first’ Eurovision - and this time I was visiting from my adopted home of Germany. Again my ‘home’ country took home the victory, and again came the excitement of a contest in the city I was living - as I was one of the many to do a ‘Netta’ and assume Berlin. Once again, it wasn’t to be.

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Sometimes it feels like the universe is against you. Like when Eurovision is hosted in Düsseldorf not Berlin and you get run over by a bus in Paris and break your arm between Semi final 1 and Semi final 2.

But sometimes it feels like the world has aligned.

Like when a terrible war, a bunch of cheating juries and a Jesus-like figure from Essex contrive to create a set of circumstances quite unique in Eurovision history and provide UK the chance to host for the firs time in 25 years. 

Next came a host city preselection process involving 20 cities, where somehow the most anti-government region of England has been given 10 million by the government to pull it all off.

Get out the circular keyboard because we’ve experienced a Miracle.

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Which brings me to where I am today. Living (temporarily) in that same small house in that same small town. As my personal world has become much bigger, it seems to have shrunk further, until I feel like Leonora.

But instead of needing to seek an escape into the world, the world has come to me. Just 10 minutes up the road is the world that I could once only access once a year through a television.

And the worlds I built along the way are all coming here too - childhood friends, ESC Nation friends, uni friends, Berlin friends, Malaysia friends, and family including a nephew born during ESC 2004 who is now old enough to drink and a boyfriend who doesn’t realise what he’s let himself in for.

Eurovision is in my hometown, and switch off the lights Lindsay, because never before have I felt that there is No Dream Impossible.