Liverpool's Eurovision party kicks off with underwater…

Liverpool's Eurovision party kicks off with underwater disco parade

The Blue and Yellow Submarine Parade will take over the streets of Liverpool's city centre to celebrate the Eurovision Song Contest.

The parade is a key part of the EuroFestival commission lineup, a programme of events to welcome the contest to the city. The parade will see an underwater sea disco come to life on the city streets as a new "magical" world called Aquatopia is created.

Featuring a glitterball puffer fish, a drumming octopus, a crew of skating jellyfish, voguing sea queens plus many more creatures of the sea and of course a blue and yellow submarine.

The festivities kick off Friday, May 5, from Williamson Square at 6pm, travelling to Whitechapel, Church Street and along Basnett Street. It will then head back to Williamson Square at approximately 7.45pm, for a final performance.

Members of the public are encouraged to follow the parade and specifically dress up for the occasion in their own "showstopping" underwater outfits.

Inspired by the United By Music theme and symbolising partnership and community, hundreds of performers, musicians and community groups will be involved including LGBTQ+ groups, dance companies, asylum seekers as well as local organisations such as Katumba and Movema.

As with all the host city events, there is significant Ukrainian involvement with the submarine doubling as a stage for a newly formed band made up of vocalist Sofia Pavlichenko (front woman of Freedom Jazz), Bozhena Hamar (Ukrainian ethnic flute virtuoso) and Liverpool's Dogshow brothers Sam and Laurie Crombie who organisers say will be performing "euro classics in an ethno-Ukraine techno mashup."

Director of Culture Liverpool, Claire McColgan CBE, said: “This event is going to be brilliantly bonkers and is the perfect way for Liverpool to embrace all things Eurovision. We were never going to programme anything that eased people gently into the Eurovision madness – Liverpool is grabbing this opportunity with both hands and thanks to our incredibly special relationship with Ukraine, we’re programming activities no host city has ever done before. And I think we can safely say that voguing sea creatures and a drumming octopus is a first.

“I want to encourage as many people as possible to head to the city centre on the 5^th and join in with these celebrations – this is a real moment in time for us all and so let’s all embrace this creative, fun, unifying event.”

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