Sweden’s broadcaster SVT has cancelled the Melodifestivalen 2022 tour. Instead of traveling around the country each week, all of the shows will be broadcast from Stockholm.
The difficult decision comes as the country faces a fourth wave of the coronavirus. The official Melodifestivalen Twitter account wrote:
“Today we announce that Melodifestivalen 2022 will be broadcast from Stockholm. With the prevailing high spread of infection, we do not consider it justifiable to travel out into the country for six weeks with a large team. The decision was made by SVT and partners.”
Idag ger vi beskedet att Melodifestivalen 2022 kommer att sändas från Stockholm. Med den rådande höga smittspridningen anser vi inte att det är försvarbart att resa ut i landet under sex veckor med ett stort team. Beslutet fattades av SVT och samarbetspartners.
— Melodifestivalen (@SVTmelfest) January 14, 2022
“We had been looking forward to taking the whole of Sweden’s party out into the country, but no matter where we are, we will do everything we can to deliver great entertainment and a crackling music party in the winter darkness.”
In recent days fears had been growing that such a cancellation was inevitable. Rising cases were coupled with some high-profile positive cases, including several party leaders and, as we learned on Friday, the country’s Prime Minister. Even the country’s king, queen and crown princes have endured infections this month.
Aftonbladet reports that it is not yet clear which venue will host the event in Stockholm.
“The situation is as it is and now we are making the best of the situation,” SVT’s CEO Hanna Stjärne said in a press release. “Melodifestivalen is a party for all of Sweden and we will do our utmost to create an exciting TV program that spreads warmth and joy when needed most.”
According to SVT, audiences will be present at the broadcasts, unlike last year when the Annex was completely empty except for performers and production staff.
The size of the audience will be based on restrictions, which at the moment allows for a maximum of 500 people.
It’s not yet clear how those tickets will be assigned and allocated. Tens of thousands have already been sold to the public by SVT and Live Nation.
Waste of time. If they are so stupid by next month to still have a 500 crowd limit, then the show will suffer. They need to see the prevailing winds. Less restrictions, not more.
It’s likely that restrictions will be somewhat eased by the time Melfest takes place. But you have to understand that the tour is very expensive and no one is going to put their money on “maybe”.
Such a shame, and with just under a month to prepare for this. I think Hovet Arena might be the option to go as of now.
Mello without an audience is not the same. I still remember the scene of The Mama’s walking through the audience after they won in March 2020. It was probably the last big event, few days later the whole world stood still.
Melodifestivalen’s audience is always very cheerful with all the glitter and balloons, they will be missed
There will be an limited audience, up to 500 people. Which in arena therms is nothing. But still
they can easily overcome the empty venue problem with smart camera shots. the show must go on sis, let’s not complain over the smallest of the problems that could happen.
Cosmic Bridesters unite! Listen to the Cosmic Bride – The Devil Lives In Spain from Pabandom Is Naujo 2022. It’s so good.
I hope that Eurovision in Italy will not be canceled as in 2020 it would be disastrous …..
No way it will be cancelled but if the situation doesn’t improve we will probably have another ESC with audience restrictions and without events outside like Rotterdam last year…
Come on, get a grip. We are in a much better place than in May 2021, and that still went ahead without too much change.
There will be a show, and it will be a belter !!
It won’t be canceled regardless of the pandemic. The measures used to make the show go on for 2021 will likely be used again to make sure the 2022 contest goes ahead.
I don’t mind about the competiton being held in different arenas , but i really want to see some audience. I’d like to see audience for every national final but especially for melfest because we’re used to that energetic/crowded view of it.Last year it was so strange
There will be a small audience of 500
yes i hope nothing will change about this decision and all of them complete the show safe 🙂
I hope that the semifinals and the final will still be in different venues. the semifinals can be in the smaller Annexet (as it was last year), while the final can be in either Globe Arena or smaller Hovet. I also hope that all shows will have live audience, but with limited/reduced capacity as it was in Eurovision last year.
The issue is that Hovet is booked every week. Annexet is too small to hold a 500 people audience. Avicii Arena is the only option here. Still think it will end up in Hovet somehow
or the semis in Hovet and the final in Avicii Arena? it could be an alternative option as well.
Yes it will be audience up to 500. Which is a huge loss for any arena because whats the point? Not sure about Annexet because other shows use that arena during the period
It’s sad that they can’t do the tour. It’s normally such a big thing in Sweden. I hope the acts aren’t too disappointed and it hasn’t messed up their plans too much.
I must say though, I find the choice of thumbnail for this article really quite disrespectful towards Tusse. He won Melfest and represented Sweden last year, not Dotter. For almost all the articles about countries this year you’ve been using last year’s act as the thumbnail but it seems like even wiwibloggs can’t accept “Dotterdam” never happened, it’s quite sad really. Tusse deserves more respect than this.
No one is disrespecting Tusse. They are using this photo simply because it’s a very nice photo. Dotter is really photogenic
It’s a pity because the time between end of this wave and time when Melfest takes place will likely be around 4-6 weeks. It was a close call.
Just a question about this, the Swedish government said that the restrictions are planned for 4 weeks so if everything goes as planned, will they do the final as usual in Friends arena? Cuz it would be fantastic if it does happen
they actually have two choices of venue if using Friends Arena is not feasible:
-Globe Arena
-Hovet
but still with reduced/limited audience capacity (as it was in Eurovision last year).
Yes 4 weeks but it can be prolonged if it gets worse. But I do think we will have a final as usual
Everytime the government has done restrictions, they are always extended. By the looks of today were there is a record of cases, I doubt it will last 4 weeks. If we are lucky, there will be a bigger audience but probably not as big as Friends
It’s a bit different though. Omicron waves tend to be much quicker (that’s why they peak so high), as we already saw in other countries. There is a good chance restrictions will be eased by the time final takes place – the tour won’t happen obviously, but there is a potential to upscale the audience. Let’s hope for the best 🙂
Most experts here in Sweden predict the peak will be in four weeks, the end of January. So they might at least have the final as usual
Not surprised at all. The majortiy of the country seems sick right now. I go to a university in Stocholm where 500 students, including me, did an exam last week and this week 41% of those students got a positive covidtest. I do not think the situation will be better in the coming weeks and a cancelled tour is the smartest thing they can do. Apparently the last melfest who had an audience (2020 final) created an insane rise of covid in Stockholm and I’m sure they want to avoid that. Let’s hope that SVT has a plan B for… Read more »
Actually MF 2020 was not to blame for the rise. What was was the amount of people who returned from ski holiday in Italy. The month of February is called sportlov in Sweden because for one week during February pupils have a “sports” break and families usually go to ski holidays then
I wrote the rises in Stockholm. I worked at friends arena during that period and our bosses told us that the health care professionals had the finale as one of the highest reasons as to why covid hit stockholm, together with sportlovet
As you say – more or less everyone i know here in sweden get Covid now. Not in 8 weeks time. So keep the final as it is :).
Its good that there will be a small audience in any case. Last year was boring without it.
I know it’s an unfortunate situation for those who are looking forward to seeing the show on tour, but at this point it’s probably the most reasonable thing they could do right now. At least they will allow a small audience based on restrictions.
I had tickets all ready:(
If we had 95% vaccinated people instead of 83% the situation would have been much better and we wouldnt have severe restrictions. Instead we have a society where the majority of obeying citizens are held hostage by 15 % who think they know better
I feel you. I don’t want to think about the vaccination rate of my own country.
Anti vaxxers are just ruining everything… 🙁
If you look at countries with higher vaccination rates (Portugal, Ireland), it doesn’t really seem to be the case. Swedish restrictions are still the mildest in Europe and there was a major pressure on health care in countries with higher vax rates than Sweden.
We simply live in a pandemic and this kind of thing happens. The good thing is that health authorities across Scandinavia seem to be confident that this wave should be the last one.
Hospitalization numbers are really low in Ireland, surely the vaccination rate is a factor in this.
Funilly enough, COVID hospitalisations are also low in Sweden. The trouble is that it got mixed with influenza, winter sickness and some staff walking away. Covid isn’t really the biggest problem right now, thus higher vaccination rates probably wouldn’t make a difference. 83% is still a very high number that protects hospitals to a large extent.
3d jab is what really matters. Two jabs of the vaccine only protects from severe illness and death for the omicron variant. The record of cases per day now is a consequence of level of people who’ve taken (and been allowed to take) the third jab
That’s sad 🙁