In the aftermath of the cancellation of Eurovision 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, song contest organisers rushed to develop an alternative Eurovision broadcast. The result is Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light, which will air on May 16 at 21:00 CEST — the original time slot of the grand final.
The EBU and its Dutch Members NPO, NOS and AVROTROS revealed that European broadcasters — and Australia’s — are rather excited at the prospect. A total of 46 broadcasters will air the show. That’s the 41 participating broadcasters of Eurovision 2020, plus five additional broadcasters who weren’t fielding contestants.
Eurovision 2020 replacement show
Now Eurovision organisers have revealed what the Eurovision 2020 replacement will look like. All 41 artists will send a personal message to everyone in Europe and a clip of the song with which they were supposed to participate in Eurovision 2020. But that’s not all. The artists will also perform “Love Shine A Light” by Katrina and The Waves, the winner of Eurovision 1997. The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra — which consists of 90+ musicians — will also perform a special orchestral version of the song.
With just 10 days to go, we’re excited to confirm #Eurovision: Europe #ShineALight will feature performances from ESC legends including:
?@dunclaurence ??
?@NettaBarzilai ??
?@futomaki ??
?@manszelmerlow ??See what else you can look forward to ? https://t.co/7B1Dm1gtkm pic.twitter.com/HBmVeAhmmE
— Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) May 6, 2020
Performances by Eurovision stars
Reigning champion Duncan Laurence can’t miss out on this party. The winner of Eurovision 2019 will perform his new song Someone Else for the first time live during Europe Shine A Light. Michael Schulte (Germany, 2018) will perform “Ein Bisshen Frieden” together with Ilse DeLange (The Netherlands, 2014). Israel’s 1979 Eurovision winner Gali Atari will sing her song “Hallelujah” along with a special Junior Eurovision Song Contest choir.
Sweden’s Måns Zelmerlöw will sing his winning Eurovision 2015 song “Heroes”. Marija Šerifović performs her song “Molitva” with which she won for Serbia in 2007 and Israel’s Netta will perform an acoustic version of a new song.
Johnny Logan will perform “What’s Another Year”, his winning Eurovision 1980 song. But he won’t perform this song all by himself — he’ll be joined by Eurovision fans from all over the world to create a massive choir.
Europe Shine A Light
The show will be hosted from a studio without an audience by Eurovision 2020 hosts Chantal Janzen, Edsilia Rombley and Jan Smit. YouTube star NikkieTutorials will keep us updated in an online platform. The show will be presented in the English language.
46 broadcasters from all over Europe will air Europe Shine A Light on the 16th of May at 21:00 CET. The show will also be live-streamed by the official YouTube channel of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Are you excited about Europe Shine A Light? What do you think of the format? Let us know in the comment section down below!
Some people should stop complaining. Of course, no one is happy that the ESC has been cancelled. But the current situation with coronavirus and its restrictions don’t allow the broadcasters to come up with some spectacular show. Therefore at least for a while we will return to old times when the TV broadcasting was in its beginnings and was recorded from TV studios. I’m sure the EBU did their best to present us some show in such a short time. In my opinion, as it was said, there should be more focus on 2020 acts, but who knows, maybe they… Read more »
“The show will be presented in the English language.”
As opposed to what alternative???
The other official language of Eurovision – French.
I’m sorry, but that sounds like a very boring programme. Nothing exciting there. ESC winners singing their winning songs? They have done it every year. Also very low interest in Netta’s etc. new songs.
You don’t have to watch……… But i’m sure you do!
I don’t get all these negative responses. In fact, I think this will be a very interesting show and I’ll watch it. It’s obviously not the same as previous years – it’s a different show – but I believe it will be very enjoyable. Just enjoy it, everyone, and stop complaining. It won’t make the situation any better. And maybe next year the usual Eurovision bubble is back. For now we should stay safe.
I’m super excited for this! And nice to see Ilse de Lange perform again on an Eurovision show!
Fake agenda, uninteresting, 0 attention to this year’s entries. Will perhaps turn an eye on the contest next year.
I really don’t like why eurofans give hate to this show. I mean, I’m also devastated that there won’t be eurovision this year but it’s better than nothing. I think it’s going to be a very exciting show but one thing that I didn’t like is that the whole show is only 2 hours. I think it would be better that the show will be 2.5 – 3 hours to give more attention to the 41 artists of esc2020, I mean first to show the artists and at least 2 minutes of their entries (will last about 1.5 hours) and… Read more »
Wow! What an achievement to put all the disappointment of cancelling the Eurovision 2020 aside and create this new show in six weeks time! Respect! Twelve points for the Dutch core team! And hopefully they will announce the new dates of Eurovision 2021 in this program too. I will certainly shine a light May 16th.
Dates are already out. Final preliminary set to May 15th 2021
you might be surprised hun!
Obviously, since it hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Well that was a quick change! From ‘honouring the 2020 songs’, to now ‘we’ll basically have old Eurovision winners perform their winning song and we’ll show like… 10-second clips of the 2020 entries.’ I’m sorry, what?!
If they played all 41 songs in full, that would be over 2 hours for the songs alone, not counting intros and other content. Europe Shine A Light is only scheduled for 2 hours.
Opinions on the show itself aside, i just want to say that I really appreciate how involved Mans and Netta have stayed since winning Eurovision. It’s nice to see artists who care so much about the contest.
VICTORIA 🙂
I’m so uninterested in this boring and lazy alternative that my friends and I are recreating the show ourselves. Acting it out, editing it, and then watching it (not together obviously), on May 16th. I’m more interested in having some internet fun with my friends than seeing heartfelt messages from the artists and depressing renditions of Eurovision classics to elicit some hope for a better future and so on.
You won’t now if it’s boring unless you tuned in for the entire duration of the show.
Well… I can always skim through it when they post it on YouTube. I’m most probably going to watch it eventually. But definitively not live. I don’t think they put much effort into coming up with something that would truly honor this year’s entries, nor something that could really lift our spirit. And to be honest I’m emotionally exhausted with everything that’s going on and I feel like we need a different approach. I don’t want to be reminded about how terrible everything is. I already know. I live through it. I need an evasion and I need to have… Read more »
Considering the time constraints and the current situation caused by the pandemic, this is as much effort as they can as people working for public broadcast media.
I’d rather judges slim it down to 26 songs play the full music videos of those songs and let us vote on them. 2021 ESC still to be the hosted by The Netherlands. I assume we aren’t keeping the 2020 songs until next year!
They have said that Europe Shine A Light will be non competitive. And what happens to the winner? HEY YOU WON EUROVISION 2020 BUT SORRY THE NETHERLANDS IS STILL HOSTING NEXT YEAR! lol
Of course Europe Shine A Light is non competitive cause all it’s doing is showing old songs. See it as a friendly fun competition similar to a “friendly” football match where there is nothing at stake but both sides still want to win. ESC 2020 IS CANCELLED so all know they are not going to win anything. At least the songs in full will get listened to
So. Why do people keep playing friendly football matches? This could be the same!
Money! Seemingly, I have just found out, Germany are having a semi final of the 41 songs May 9th with the “Final” on May 16th. Why couldn’t this happen instead of Shine a light?? Germany are also broadcasting an alternative song contest with apparantly about 15 countries taking part
I’ll watch this, but only because I’ve got nothing better to do. It’s more for the sake of killing time than actual excitement.
I’ll probably watch it just for my need of some kind of Eurovision ‘thing’ at this time of year.
It won’t be the same though, and I usually do watch and enjoy Eurovision related things outside of the contests like the anniversary concerts and retrospectives
But this will be tinged with some sadness over what might have been.
I’m still hopeful that everything from the host city, theme, artwork, presenters, interval acts, stage design, postcards etc can be carried over for next year.
In 2021 we will have to “Open Up” more than ever.
These same format interview/home concert videos they’re posting on the YouTube nowadays easly got me bored after the first episode. They seem lazy and honestly running out of ideas to me.
#EurovisionAgain serves tho, a whole Twitter celebartion
How long will this show be? It will take a long time to go through 41 songs plus there’s all the other songs mentioned in this report. I am only interested in the 2020 songs. I hope they are played in full, not cut up.
Approximately 2 hours. Sadly, that also the running time of all 41 songs if played back to back uninterrupted. On a TV producing standpoint, that is not ideal so they’re adding more to the show than just the entries.
I think Thomas Schreiber once mentioned that they’ll only play short clips of the 2020 songs. And if I don’t remember it falsely, he also said those clips wouldn’t exceed 30 seconds for each country. If that’s correct, it wouldn’t just be a pity, but an actual crime to this year’s artists.
Let’s all hope I got it all wrong.
We don’t have a clear idea with what their program flow will be so we could only hope for the best. I guess the best thing to happen is the over-all package being prepared for us during Eurovision week.
I fully expect the EBU’s online alternates to the semis will be where they’ll play all the songs in full with the Saturday show being the culmination of it all.
Apart from the die hard fans I can’t see viewers wanting to sit through a collection of songs that they will most likely never hear and also never want to hear again. That is why the artists and songs from bygone years are added to the programme.
Not sure if anyone except for those die hard fans will get excited about the umpteenth rendition of ‘What’s another Year?’, though …
Also: Doesn’t your description of a programme completely made up from this year’s songs actually perfectly match your description of the actual contest? 😉
I rather feel like the EBU tried everything to please the bubble, but more or less forgot about those, who only tune in for the Grand Finals.
Ironically I think only die hard fans are eager to watch the replacement show, no one else. Can’t really see casual viewers tuning in to watch yet another rendition of a Johnny Logan song.. Not even regular fans are interested in this..
That entire reference group should be sacked for even approving this travesty of honouring 2020 artists. What of this is “honouring the 2020 artists”? Seems to me they are more focused on covering old winners, which was something no one asked for, rather than you know actually focusing on giving the 2020 songs and performers a platform which is what people asked for..
Idk its kinda boring, i don’t know, i would prefer performances of the entries of this year’s edition
“A clip of the song” does that mean not the full song? If so what’s the point?
I’m just looking forward to it?????????
I’m not sure on how to react, but I’ll watch anyway.
Is there really ANY hype for this?
nope, none.