Top 10 Eurovision 2014 trends: Staging edition

Previously we gave you the Top 10 trends of Eurovision 2014, and followed up with the Eurovision 2014 trends: Wiwibloggs-readers’ edition. Now it’s time for the ultimate trends from ESC 2014. With the rehearsals behind us, we bring you the top 10 trends of staging and performance. Read below to find out what is hot and what is not this year in Copenhagen…

1. LEDs, lights and laserbeams!

 It’s definitely a year of light and laser. The massive LED-screen is being used to the max by almost every country, with laserbeams and spotlights galore to accentuate. A few stand out for us in particular: the  in-time lights that surround  Aram MP3, Austria‘s LED, Finland’s festival of light, and Romania’s super cute butterflies and hearts.

2. I wanna dance with somebody! 

It’s great to see a number of this year’s singers quite actively involved in the choreography this year. The most obvious are Vilija (Lithuania), Tanja (Estonia), Emma (Italy) and Mei (Israel). Belarus, Denmark and Iceland can have a little synchronized-dance-competition of their own. Further, we see some heavy/experimental dancing in the  performances of Hungary, Moldova and Ukraine. Poland and Ireland seems to stick with  traditional folk-dance while Axel depends on one ‘ghostly’  dancer.

3. Windy Eurovision moments

The good old wind machine is back again, as ever! This year, it seems like hurricane-season in Copenhagen, with Slovenia, Austria, Portugal, Armenia and Ukraine all making heavy use of the prop. And of course, the  wind machine is doing overtime to keep that Georgian thing flying for 3 minutes. Some advice for  the organisation: it might wanna be downed a bit, Conchita is almost blown off the stage, right back  to Austria.

4. Eurovision Gymnastics.

It seems some countries got their inspiration from the Olympics. Greece apparently got a speed course in synchronised musical trampoline jumping. Sergej (Montenegro) brought an (what seems to be professional) skater on to the stage. And one of the dancers of FYR Macedonia runs an on-stage long distance marathon. Portugal’s flag wavers work it out opening ceremony-style and Azerbaijan’s aerial acrobat decided to also jump on board on the gymnastics-trend. It’s the Eurovision Gymnastics Contest, people!

5. (Large) instruments

There are for sure (big) instruments on stage this year. Norway’s Carl Espen is taking  FOUR  violins to the stage (just in case one fails?).  Suzy brought, to our relief, her giant  drums (and  players) with her. Romania has chosen an exceptional keyboard. Kállay-Saunders  shares the stage  with a piano. Germany brought an accordion.  And, as expected, a  lot of guitars: the Netherlands, Latvia, Finland,  Switzerland, Malta,  Georgia and Iceland.

6. Bring-your-prop-contest.

Last year, we got the giant dresses. This year the trend is to bring all kinds of (weird) stuff to the stage. San Marino’s Valentina performs in front of a giant shell and Hersi (Albania) plays Lion King on top of pride rock. Russia decided to go with some sort of sail-thingy. And absolute winners of the bring-your-prop-contest are: Georgia (that’s trying it with a giant parachute!) and…drumroll…Ukraine, who got their hands on a giant hamster-wheel?!

7. Battle of the bands.

It was not until the actual rehearsals that we realized that we have quite some bands on stage. Who are the contestants of the battle of the bands? Here we go: Finland (Softengine), the Netherlands (The Common Linnets + band), Switzerland (Sebalter + band), Georgia (The Shin and Mariko), Malta (Firelight), Iceland (Pollapönk) and Latvia (Aarzemnieki). Let the battle of the bands begin! Who is your favourite from all these bands?

8. The melodrama of it all….

One things that pops out this year, is a lack of more happy songs. With a few notable exceptions (Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Estonia…), we have a number of songs with heavy topics (Hungary) or a real sad tune (Norway). And it’s only natural that we therefore have some rather heavy and dark staging. So, melodrama in the acts is also something quite 2014: Belgium, Moldova, Slovenia, Montenegro, Sweden, Armenia, Finland, Austria, The Nederlands, Hungary, Norway, San Marino, Albania, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Spain all take it to the dark/melancholic side.

9. Rain (of fire?)

Of course we have Ruth, literally singing about the rain. So we didn’t expect anything else than her staging being totally devoted to rain, including ‘drops’ falling on the LED-screen. But besides that, we also see a rain (of fire) in the staging of United Kingdom’s Molly, Switzerland and Austria. And don’t forget of course that the stage is totally surrounded by water

10. Blue is the colour.

Coincidental or not, blue seems to be the colour of 2014. Slovenia wins the ‘how blue are you?’ quiz with a total blue LED, blue laserbeams and a blue dress. If you are in desperate of some color: Twin-Twin does it pink, Ireland goes gold, Germany likes purple and Portugal offers you a whole festival of colors! Phew!

You can read more of our lists by clicking here. 

Graphic: Sinan

Daphne Dee contributed this report from Belgium. Follow her on Twitter @JacinthaD1. You can also keep up-to-date with the latest Eurovision news and gossip by following the team on Twitter @wiwibloggs and by liking our Facebook page