APRIL 24

WELCOME TO THE 11TH EDITION OF THE EUROVISION DIARY!

APRIL 24

Sorry again for the technical hiccup but we’ve sorted things out for now! We’ll be working hard to catch up with this the coming days.

Today I wanted to introduce our stage supplier, Unbranded! They’ve been here with us every day since load in and have been responsible for building our beautiful stage, and a couple of other unexpected things.

Besides bringing all the stuff needed to build our stage, they also brought furniture to turn one of their containers into the The Unbranded Lounge – true professionals! But I’m a bit confused with the complete lack of orange inside the un-official embassy of The Netherlands!

Their on site workshop is still constantly busy. The stage was in place, on time, to our satisfaction and we’ve been rehearsing on it for a couple of days already.

Now they are preparing the final bits and pieces for completion of the design, and building a bunch of stuff for us that was not in their original contract.

Our first idea was to convert the venue floor with carpet, since the lacqured concrete came with a reflection that would not be so great. But then Marco came up with the brilliant idea to paint the floor in the audience area black instead. They are using a special coating that is very durable and will stay black for the duration of the show, but will be very easily removed with a proper cleaning machine once we’re done. Very smart, and very cost efficient!

Do you remember the paper figures we had in 2013 and 2016? No? Oh well… we bought 200 Elvis, Mr. Spocks and Marilyn Monroes and placed them here and there in the arena to use as foregrounds for cameras and cranes during rehearsals.

See here:

We even bought a cow:

Well……. In the rush of everything, we kind of forgot the need of these figures this year, executing the pre production of this show in 5 months less than normal.

So….. what do you do…….. you go to Unbranded’s workshop, you get down on your knees, you tell them that you love them enomously and that the incident with the lack of Bitterballen is forgotten and forgiven, and you ask them to do some foreground figures, nicely dressed in Unbranded swag!

Here are some of the super heroes in our staging team:

L to R: Ann-Marie van Rietschoten, Henk van de Garskamp, Ruben van de Wetering, Anthonie de Haas, Arie Worst, and Eduardus van Haastrecht.

Why don’t we wrap up today with the saying about the stubborn Dutchman.
Wooden shoe, wooden head and wouldn’ listen!