Location – River’s Edge Events Level 1, 18/38 Siddeley Street Melbourne, VIC 3005
On the 31st of March I attended the OGAE Australia Melbourne 2023 Eurovision Preview Party. The doors opened at 7pm with the actually event starting at 8pm and finished at 11:45pm. This year we have Brooke who represented Ireland in 2020 as guest at all the preview parties. She performed 10 songs. We also had surprise guest, which was Sheldon Riley. Sheldon performed 2 songs before the semi final 2 videos were played.
The venue was long and had white walls, the downside was that there were a few tables, but they were bar tables. I missed having sitting height tables as it felt more comfortable with those kinds of tables. There were 3 screens set up in the room with 2 being at either end of the room and one in the middle behind the stage. Our group sat in the corner furthest from the entrance, this meant we had to get up to see the stage when Brooke and Sheldon performed. When the videos for semi-final 1 started people gathered around one of the 3 screens.
My costume for this year was inspired by France 2022 and how I felt listening to the song. It is a black fantasy dress with front lacing, green leaves on the front and a flowy layer to add texture. I wore a black long sleeved layer underneath it for warmth along with full length leggings and black boots. I got my nails done in lavender to match my hair and it also suits the them of my costume. My Dreamcatcher light stick completed my costume and I found 2 K-pop fans that recognised my Dreamcatcher light stick.
The crowd favourites for Semi-final 1 were Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine. The Semi-final 2 favourites were Cyprus, Austria and Australia. The Big 5 favourites were the UK and France. The only key moment I remembered was that everyone did the oh oh in the chorus of Australia’s entry. There were 18 countries that sent a video message before their songs, and they were Malta, Latvia, Croatia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Ukraine, Estonia, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Slovenia, San Marino, Lithuania and Australia. The songs our group liked the most were Portugal, Croatia, Finland, UK, Slovenia, Austria and Australia.
My Top 10
- Serbia
- Czechia
- Portugal
- Moldova
- Netherlands
- Finland
- Georgia
- Cyprus
- Germany
- Slovenia
The winning country chosen by the everyone was Finland with 659 points, 2nd was Sweden with 564 points, 3rd was Austria with 556 points. The rest of the top ten was France, Norway, UK, Czechia, Serbia, Slovenia and Moldova.
The venue was more accessible than last years venue which was good, but i preferred the smaller venue with tables and booths. The signal was perfect so voting was much easier that last year. I felt that 2022 had a better mix of songs for the party section compared to this year. One highlight of the night was getting a photo with Sheldon Riley.
the World Acording to Rose 