Eurovision has made Liverpool “come alive again” as thousands descend on the city to join in the party.
With three days to go until the grand final of the 67th song contest, music fans have swarmed to be part of the city wide festivities and live acts. Around 25,000 people gathered outside St George’s Hall on Sunday for the National Lottery Big Eurovision Welcome while many more have taken in the Eurovision village on the Pier Head and the first semi final at the M&S Bank Arena.
Stuart Andrew MP, the UK Government’s Eurovision minister, has been in Liverpool for the duration of the events and has heaped praise on the show it has put on.
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He said: “What’s really struck me about this is, we’ve had great collaboration between the government, Liverpool Council and the city region, planning this, working very closely together, but planning it and talking about it, to actually seeing it on the ground are two very different things. This is just incredible, Liverpool has really demonstrated that it’s a great party city, it’s great at organising events and the welcome people are getting; I’ve already had so much positive feedback from people from around the world who are visiting.
“All I can say is a massive thank you to everybody in Liverpool for what they’ve achieved.” When it was confirmed in October last year Liverpool would step in as the UK host city on behalf of Ukraine, it gave stakeholders not a lot of time to get things ready.
This was also two months after commissioners appointed to the city council had expressed their concern about how the organisation was being run. Despite this, Mr Andrew said there was never any doubt about Liverpool’s ability to deliver Eurovision.
He said: “The early meetings I had, I could sense the enthusiasm from the council, from the city region and it’s just been a positive relationship right from the outset. We knew we were up against it, we knew we had six months to put all of this together and to have achieved all of this in six months is phenomenal.”
The ongoing war in Ukraine meant tradition was broken this year as the winning nation from 2022 was unable to host. Mr Andrew paid tribute to how Liverpool had made sure Ukraine was at the heart of its adopted duty.
He said: “What I find really moving is there has been such an effort to make sure there’s a strong Ukraine influence here. The tragedy of this is this should actually be being held in Ukraine but Liverpool stepped up and it has made sure its culture is celebrated just as much as ours.
“I’m just as enthusiastic as the council to put on a show like this and I don’t know what else they could have done to be fair. I think the ambition is something we should be celebrating and credit to the city.” During the coronavirus pandemic, Liverpool’s £5bn tourism and hospitality industry was hit hard and the green shoots of recovery are only now beginning to show.
The Eurovision minister said hosting the song contest could be the shot in the arm to get Liverpool’s economy fully back on its feet again. He said: “I think this is a huge opportunity, we have become a country that’s got a great reputation for organising big events like this and this is an opportunity to showcase Liverpool, the wider region to 160m people and I really hope the benefits will be felt by businesses and the tourist industry across this region.
“People are going to go back to their countries, praising Liverpool for putting on an amazing show, an amazing festival, but also the great welcome they’ve received, so this is probably one of the best opportunities for the city since covid. Already I’m hearing from businesses they can feel the city has come alive again, which is amazing to see and I thank them all for engaging.”
The Conservative MP of course said he was backing Mae Muller to take home the glass microphone for the UK but added: “I really enjoyed Norway’s performance and judging by the reaction of the audience, I think Sweden and Finland are going to put up a good fight.”
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