Jon Ola Sand made several announcements about EurovIsIon

Jon Ola Sand, the Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest recently gave an interview to ad.nl where he made some announcements about what we can expect from this years competition in Rotterdam but also about the voting system and the political voting.

Being asked what we can expect from this years show Jon Ola announced that the show will include an atmosphere of Rotterdam and that it will showcase the culture, art and the history of reconstruction. He also believes that the show will be creative and with high technology standards:

« I think it will be an amazing, creative and developed production. Expect a lot of technical highlights. It is easier for the EBU to work in Rotterdam than in Ukraine in 2017 for example as they didn’t have much experience with big live competitions. »

Being asked about which changes were essential in the last years, Jon Ola Sand expressed his satisfaction with the current voting system and the abolition of the live orchestra, stating:

« It was important to remove the live orchestra. Therefore we can guarantee more participating countries as an organisation with 41 countries and a live orchestra would be too complex. The juries are also an important addition to the contest. With the introduction of the juries, the time of singing turkeys on stage is over. The music is more important again. »

Jon Ola Sand also announced that the EBU would allow a maximum of 44 countries to take part at the ESC, stating:

« We have 41 participating countries this year, our limit would be 44 as we didn’t host a show with such an amount of participating countries before. We also have no signs from the middle East. I would be happy if they would join in as the contest would be more versatile. We talk with Morocco. Until now, I didn’t say no to an EBU-member who wanted to take part. »

Jon Ola Sand also thinks that it would be wrong to exclude Armenia and Azerbaijan from the competition only because they don’t award points to each other. He explains:

« It’s not good that they award 0 points to each other but what can we do? Exclude them? No, we are already very proud that they share the same stage, we want to keep them on board and hope that the situation will change with lots of talking. In fact, we have thought about changing the voting system in the last few years. For example to give 25% power to the juries and 75% to the public or vice versa. But we believe that the current 50% jury and 50% televote is the best voting system. »

Jon Ola Sand will resign after this years competition in Rotterdam.

What do you thInk about the announcements of Jon Ola? Tell us In the comments sectIon below.

Source: ad.nl
Photo by: Pim Ras Fotografie