An estimated TV audience of 160 million watched the 67th edition of the contest, held in Liverpool, U.K., on behalf of war-torn Ukraine.
But for the past few weeks, John, Paul, George and Ringo have been overtaken as Liverpool’s number one music tourist draw by another also hugely popular — and to many onlookers, baffling — cultural behemoth: The Eurovision Song Contest, which took place earlier this month in the city’s 11,000-capacity M&S Bank Arena, located on the city’s waterfront, next to the River Mersey. with her song “Tattoo,” becoming the first woman and only the second person to collect the prize twice.
This year’s theme was “United by Music” and throughout Liverpool a colorful array of Eurovision banners and Ukraine flags were on proud display. The city’s bars and restaurants updated their menus to sell dishes and drinks named after famous past Eurovision songs . The windows of shops were filled with blue-and-yellow scarfs, hats, fridge magnets and flags, alongside the usual Beatles and football souvenirs.
Aside from main song contest, host cities run a busy calendar of sister events. In Liverpool, those included The Eurovision Village, a dedicated 25,000-capacity fan zone in the city center, located around 15 minutes’ walk from the M&S Bank Arena, which ran a program of mostly free-to-attend DJ sets and live performances.
Eurovision fandom among the LGBTQI+ community is at the heart of its huge popularity. In 1998, Israel’s Dana International made history as the contest’s first trans winner. Although politics is largely banned at Eurovision , it has long championed LGBTQI+ performers and representation – often in defiance of conservative Eastern European countries where homosexuality is discriminated against such as Russia and Hungary, both of which no longer participate in the contest. .
Eurovision fans around Liverpool City Centre ahead of the semi-final of Eurovision Song Contest at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool.In the media zone, located inside a huge conference hall next to the M&S Bank Arena, fan community journalists were grouped together near the entrance, bringing a buzz and energy to the press room that’s often missing from large-scale entertainment events.
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