Last month, the EBU confirmed that while Junior Eurovision 2020 would be hosted in Poland, the competing broadcasters would record their performance in their home country. But now it’s been revealed that some acts will be travelling to Warsaw to record theirs with the Polish broadcaster
The news was confirmed by Konrad Smuga, the Director and Artistic Director of Junior Eurovision 2020. He made the announcement at a press conference held by TVP launching production of the 2020 edition of the junior song contest.
Smuga revealed that originally all the delegations were invited to come to Poland to record their performances. However, due to safety concerns around the pandemic, many competitors decided to stay home and will record their clip locally.
A budget-friendly option
But recording at TVP’s studio is appealing to some broadcasters — sharing facilities will help keep costs down. Broadcasters who choose to film locally are required to build a set to TVP’s specifications. While there is no estimated cost for this, recently Spain’s broadcaster revealed they were looking to spend €16,700 for hiring the LED screens alone.
TVP are also ensuring that all participating broadcasters will be performing on a level playing field, with a similar technical set-up. Countries will have to use the same stage design and same number of cameras and crew. Spain’s RTVE also revealed the basic stage design that delegations are required to use.
Smuga said that the team was aiming for JESC 2020 to feel like a joyful, escapist event. “We want it to be a very modern spectacle, joyful. We want to use modern technologies, we will try to make viewers feel this situation as little as possible and forget about what is happening for these two hours.”
As well as recording their competitive performances, the acts will also participate in the recording of the group song, “Move the World”.
The Netherlands will be paying attention
Smuga also said that Dutch broadcasters will be keeping an eye on how things play out at in Warsaw. The format of Junior Eurovision 2020 closely matches the potential Scenario D of Eurovision 2021. In this scenario, the participating countries will stay home and submit a pre-recorded live performance on their song. These will be incorporated into the show hosted at Ahoy Arena — but with no live audience.
It also shares a bit in common with Scenario C. This situation would assume most countries are able to compete in-person in Rotterdam, but would allow for a home country performance from any delegations who are unable to travel.
The Junior Eurovision situation of delegations flying to the host country to record their performances would solve the issue of how a country can give a large-scale Eurovision-quality performance when their own resources may be limited.
What do you think? Will countries who film their performances in Warsaw have an advantage? Would this scenario work for Eurovision 2021? Tell us your thoughts below!
Poland may not win Junior Eurovision every year. The contest also has a large amount of fans in the following countries:
• Belarus
• France
• Netherlands
• Russia
• Spain
• Ukraine
To answer you question, from 2016-2019, 18 countries participated on average each year.
This years EBU decisions were fatal.
I said it before, I’ll repeat it after those few months: because of cancelling 2020, ESC is now destroyed at some point and it’s going to be hard to bring it back on track…
The only right scenario would be to go on with life, use technology, modernize and make ESC blossom again in a new reality. What was before 2020 won’t be back… Unfortunately dinosaurs from EBU are about to make even more destroying decisions… YOU’LL SEE.
7 dislikes? Haha You deny reality here.
LIAR!!!
For the average amount of countries, it depends on what years we are looking at. If we say the average from 2016 to 2019, that’s an average of 18 participants per year.
Scenario C or D will be in place if the contest goes on ahead, but we may have to come to the conclusion that the contest may not come back for some years may not until the 2030s.
Also blas (Spain 2020 & 2021) tried to represent Spain in jesc in 2004 and lina (2nd place in ema 2020 (should’ve won)) represented Slovenia in jesc in 2015
I really think that the countries near Poland are the delegations like Germany, Belarus ( if they join), Russia and Maybe Ukraine. I hope for the best for the children!
If Germany has reconstructed the ESC stage and even ripped off the logo for their past 2 ESC NFs then I think it’s possible
Just imagining poor San Marino trying to recreate a Florian Wieder set in Valentina’s backyard…
He’s the guy who’s designed most of the stages recently (including every single one between 2017 and 2020). But I agree!
I wonder which of those broadcasters are opting to film their performance in Warsaw. With Spain doing their thing on their turf, two other countries I think that are most likely to stay put would be France, and Germany. The Netherlands could also lean towards staying at home as they don’t wanna risk any more members of Unity get infected. Russia is likely to stay as well. So that leaves us with: Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Malta, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Ukraine is Poland’s next door neighbor so traveling there should be easier. Kazakhstan is a toss-up as they either wanna… Read more »
Belarus isn’t too far away either, and given everything going on there, I’d imagine getting outside the country would be better creatively.
Looks like Belarus is sticking to filming their performance in the BTRC studios after they announced their act just now.