On the 28th March I attended the OGAE Australia Melbourne 2025 Eurovision Preview Party with a friend Ben and one of his friends. The preview party was held in a function room on the 1st floor of the Harvey’s Sports Bar & Grill located at 169 Fitzroy St, St Kilda VIC 3182.
The function room had the higher bar tables close to the entrance and to the left, the lower tables closer to the small stage. The bar was located on the right as people entered the room. Small flags outlined the main area and were also in the upper room to the left. There were screens in every section so no matter where you sat, you could see the screen. we sat in a raised section on the left of the main area, which provided good viewing for the songs and the performance of Betty Evans and Sunstroke Project later on.
The doors opened at 6:30pm for a 7pm start and went till 11pm. food and drink were able to be ordered from the bar. all the songs were shown in alphabetical order with Australia left till the end. My costume for this year was inspired by Latvia 2025 and It was a black fantasy dress with front lacing, green leaves on the front and a flowy layer to add texture. I wore ear cuffs to add a point to my ear, with leggings and sandals and my top layer was my short cloak.
A lot of dressed up in sequins or in a costume, with these ones being the ones I saw.
- Two from Sweden
- Two from Australia
- Two from Iceland
- Two from Estonia
- Latvia
Crowd Favourites
- Finland
- Malta
- Norway
- San Marino
- Iceland
- Netherlands
- Sweden
- Australia
The voting period gave us 2 performances from Betty Evans singing an English version of Portugal’s 2025 song and another song which I don’t know the name of. there was no problem with getting reception to do our votes. There was a costume competition, and I was up against 7 people.
Costumes in the competition
- a female and a male version of the sauna dancers from Sweden
- Two dressed people dressed as Milkshake man from Australia
- a female tommy cash from Estonia
- the black version of the 2025 Latvian stage outfits (that was mine)
- a really good version of Ericka from Finland 2025
- a child dressed as a dancer from Iceland 2025
Sunstroke Project were the main performers of the night. The songs they performed were:
- hey mama (2017)
- runaway (2010)
- two of their own songs – Yummy Mommy and new song – We on the rise
- A remix of few songs including daddy cool, who let the dogs out, Rasputin, coco jambo, all that she wants and sweet dreams.
My Top 10
- Sweden
- Ukraine
- Latvia
- Norway
- Iceland
- Czechia
- Portugal
- Poland
- San Marino
- Croatia
Many people dressed up in current and past costumes which was nice to see. There was a meet and greet with sunstroke project and i was one of many that lined up to meet them.
The disco ran from 10:17 to 11pm. overall the night was a great success. Our group left at 10:40pm
the World Acording to Rose 