Fair warning to Portugal: you may have won the right to host Eurovision 2018, but it’s going to cost you! An investigation into Ukraine’s organisation costs for Eurovision 2017 shows that the contest isn’t getting any cheaper to host.

The bill for this year’s contest seems to be sitting at just shy of 18.5 million euros. In August 2016, a budget of roughly 15 million euros was set, though this was slowly increased over time.

This figure comes from an investigation by Ukraine’s Channel 24. Ukraine uses a system called ProZorro. The system allows the public to view certain public expenditures.

So far Channel 24 has unearthed over 500 payments relating to the contest — which is why an ultimate cost is still hard to confirm. Even so, there’s certainly some big numbers involved.

Using a rough current exchange rate of 1 Ukrainian hryvnia to around 0.034 euros, here’s just some of the payments discovered so far:

Eurovision 2017: Selected organisation costs

  • €2,686,535  – Lighting equipment
  • €1,101,348  – Projectors and screens
  • €1,039,463  – Stage construction
  • €913,564 – Video & TV feed production
  • €784,510 – Spectators stands
  • €679,230 – Flights
  • €530,737  – Designers’ services over LED videos
  • €529,595  – Sound equipment
  • €484,357  – Video surveillance

They might be the big numbers, but some of the smaller amounts spent are still pretty eye-watering.

The red carpet ceremony, for example, cost €19,517. It was the longest Eurovision red carpet ever, after all…

That’s not as much as Jamala’s performance fee, though. She earned €32,850 for her performances throughout the contest. That’s double the amount that both Ruslana (€13,121) and ONUKA (€1,500) received.

Of course, all these figures will no doubt be offset by sponsorship funds. Pepsi and Jacobs were just two brands that heavily sponsored all events throughout the two weeks. Tourism funds will also help ease some of the financial burden. It’s not all bad, y’all!

What do you think about the figures? Was it money well spent by Ukraine? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments section below!

READ MORE UKRAINE EUROVISION NEWS

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Karen
Karen
6 years ago

If the costs are so high for staging the contest I can now understand why so many broadcasters are not sending songs that they hope could win. For example, ESC 2017 did not have the market share of the audience in the U.K. so why would the BBC want to pay out all the expense for a show that’s not even a ratings winnner? I wonder how many broadcasters look at the contest with this mindset – it’s great to participate but not looking to win.

Magistr
Magistr
6 years ago

Our show was better than swedish… sorry, Sweden, your everyyear pop is monotonous, ESC 2013 was boring with bad stage… love love peace peace was good for sure, at the same time you tryed to destroy eurovision spirit using J.Timberlake …

Jim
Jim
6 years ago
Reply to  Magistr

Remember, your show was helped by Swedish, Danish, German, etc all people around Europe. Only other time when a Host broadcaster needed “Assistance” was Azerbaijan in 2012. Don’t flatter yourself, it was decent show but not better than many other contests.

Magistr
Magistr
6 years ago
Reply to  Jim

Oh dear… EBU assistance less or more needs every show. Show in 2005 was produced mainly by ukrainians, and was best at that time. We could do it in other way this year, but EBu has their team now. I just said that there are a lot of ESC fans who doesnt like bunch of swedish pop every year.

harley
harley
6 years ago
Reply to  Magistr

magistr, you are very biased. the way your country treated the russian entry destroyed far more eurovision spirit than j. timberlake. the preparations for the show were awful. with the corrupt system and the corrupt politicians in ukraine, most of the funding most likely went into their own pockets. the set itself was nothing interesting at all, the song quality was quite bad and the hosts were very cheesy. yes, the 2013 stage was small, but it didn’t lack character.

mmm
mmm
6 years ago

Onuka’s act was the best one and she got the lowest ‘:(

Andrew
Andrew
6 years ago

Please understand that money that Jamala got includes spendings and media for all 3 performers – salaries for dancers, computer graphics, costumes etc. 30 thousands dollars is not very much when you count all spendings.

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

Jamala is a very smart woman.

YoungsterJoey
YoungsterJoey
6 years ago

ONUKA just 1500? wow.

kiraki
kiraki
6 years ago

Don’t forget €0 for that “mooning”

Alex
Alex
6 years ago

WTF?
They paid Jamala ONUKA and Ruslana? Why? They were promoted in a big TV show!!! It’s not like they asked Lady gaga…

Also the costs for the stage and lights are all normal for such big show, plus they had to reconstruct the whole center as it wasn’t appropriate to host the show.

Portugal has an appropriate arena for this kind of shows no problem there.

Ukraine had to start everything from 0 and they had problems from February onwards and they were behind th schedule. You shouldn’t use it as comparison to the next organisations.

Hada
Hada
6 years ago

And people are frightened because Portugal wants to do a simple ceremony of “only” 30 million Euros.

Petter
Petter
6 years ago
Reply to  Hada

i think Portugal will spend less than 30M..they have everything they need to host,what they really need doesn´t cost more than 20M .

GuidoTVA
GuidoTVA
6 years ago
Reply to  Hada

No one in Portugal said it wanted to spend 30 million euros on ESC, that’s just the average cost for the last 5-6 years. The only proposal of any significance that has come out is from a mayor in northern Portugal who proposed to spend 10 million to organize it.

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  Hada

“Simple” ceremony? Are you implying that maybe they are giving consideration to going retro? What would happen if they ditched the CGI screens and floors?

I doubt that people would watch if they went NO-tech. Now, LO-tech (that is, no CGI screens, but keep the smoke and keep the hi-tech lighting equipment, some of which I believe was present in 1997) is a different story. That would certainly bring a lot more attention to the SONGS themselves; and if you bring a stage presentation that would have otherwise relied on CGI graphics, you’re on your own.

My Name
My Name
6 years ago

Hmmm… Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t this year’s budget like double as much?

Jonas
Jonas
6 years ago

Well I was just surprised at how well it all turned out. A brilliant set, better and more elaborate than 2013 when Sweden hosted, which I can see ran into the millions. Given the chaos and literal war behind the scenes, I think whomever was in charge did a great job. Okay, so there was no elaborate and spectacular opening (compared to recent years) but that seems to be the only shortfall I can think of. I’m still not sure who gets the credit though. Ukrainian TV? EBU? Christer? I was surprised to see Jamala get such a large sum… Read more »

Gloria
Gloria
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonas

To be fair, Jamala sang like 3 times so I would divide her amount by 3 songs so she gets 10,950 each performance. Surprisingly, Ruslana got higher amount based on single performances.

Milla
Milla
6 years ago
Reply to  Gloria

That’s too many performances by one single artist in my opinion.. It felt boring.

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  Milla

What did you expect? Jamala was last year’s winner.

Tusán
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonas

Who are you kidding? It was a horrible production this year. Nothing like 2013, darling.

Jonas
Jonas
6 years ago
Reply to  Tusán

I would say 2013 wins out overall, but in terms of stage design (LED screens, aesthetics etc.), this year was far better. I know that SVT were making a conscious effort to try and scale back that year, but the result was ugly.

Ron
Ron
6 years ago
Reply to  Tusán

I actually think Eurovision 2013 was the worst especially that stage. It was tiny and dull. But that’s just my opinion.

DR
DR
6 years ago

Do we know what the presenters were paid?

Tomás Patrick davitt
Tomás Patrick davitt
6 years ago
Reply to  DR

You don’t need to pay robots, you just recharge their batteries at the end of the night

Ron
Ron
6 years ago

Aww that’s mean. They were just trying to be serious while trying to be funny at the same time. To be fair, they were much better than the hosts in 2015, 2014 and ESPECIALLY 2012.