Martin (11:10)
Morning all! It’s the middle weekend of the Eurovision fortnight, and as is traditional, things are starting to hot up all over the city. More and more fans – especially those who are “just” coming for the shows, rather than sitting in a daylight-free press centre for a week like us lot – are flooding into the city, and that’s where places like the Euro Fan Cafe come into their own.

The main room was opened up last night and the dancefloor clearly had a more diverse demographic to it – although quite what they made of DJ Douze Points playing “Hullu yö” is anyone’s guess. We loved it, of course!

And my walk home was brightened up by a conversation with a couple of drunk young locals on Möllevångstorget who couldn’t get their head around the idea that anyone would voluntarily spend two weeks in Malmö – although they did go on to point out that the city is cheaper than Stockholm, its residents are friendlier and less snobbish, and the place has excellent falafel. All of which I can confirm to be true. (Burp.)

Felix (13:35)

Ouch. I did a *lot* of walking yesterday for all the rehearsal photos in the arena and back to the press centre for the upload, and today it’s not gonna be less. My walking-involved muscles are quite sore, but I still danced to “Hullu Yö”, of course.

Today I take the opportunity to show some photos of the press centre!

First things first: Liquids are not allowed to be brought into the press centre, but we all have these bottles:

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…and these are the water taps where we can get our refills from:

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This is the “Fan Area”… quite nice:

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The press conference room:

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And of course we must not forget the OGAE poll stand, where you can submit your predictions – and so, this is how things stand at the moment:

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And finally, some more impressions from the press centre!

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(and finally, our table’s “feature”)

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Danny (14.00)

We’re already underway with the first few rehearsals from semi-final 2, the press centre is quite a bit busier than yesterday as more people arrive. They’ve now opened a little stage on the right hand side which they haven’t used yet – apparently it’s being used for a pre Eurovision show on svt.se. There’s been a few technical issues again early on but they’ve all been sorted out quickly which is great.

Last night I attended another Talk Show at the Euro Fan Café – this time we had a total of 4 artists – first up was Natália Kelly from Austria, who performed an acapella version of “Love Shine A Light” as well as her Eurovision entry.

Then we had Elitsa and Stoyan from Bulgaria who brought their drums with them and treated us to a mini concert of 4 songs – this type of music works really well live.

After this, it was the turn of Klapa s Mora from Croatia to take the stage, I’m not a huge fan of their song but they are all talented guys. We got renditions of a few lovely traditional Croatian songs. Finally we had Hannah from Slovenia who got the biggest cheer from the audience (mostly from myself and my Slovenian friend Miha!) – we even got a little wave!

After the show we WERE planning on going to Euro Club but then loads of other people turned up  including Felix and Martin and the ESC Nation guys so we stayed there instead till the early hours! A good night was had by all! And I can confirm that the falafel here is amazing, the falafel burget I had at 3.30 am last night went down a treat!

Martin (21:40)
As another rehearsal day comes to an end and we get ready for a quick change of clothes before the Belarusian party at EuroClub tonight, I can happily report that I’ve finally lost my arena virginity! The hall here has only been open to the “fan press” since yesterday, and I hadn’t managed to find time to pop my head around the door until now. But the promise of pyrotechnics during the final run-through of Albania was enough to tempt me in.

The pyros were certainly impressive – the audience is in for a treat, albeit a very warm one! – but one thing I certainly noticed is that (as usual) the vocal and musical mix comes across very differently in the hall compared with on the screen. The sound is more bassy and the vocal mix is a bit rougher, for a start. And while it’s possible to follow the actual camerawork on the two big screens at either side of the stage, your eyes are inevitably drawn towards what’s happening on the stage, meaning you don’t really get the impression of what the viewer will be seeing. So that’s why we’re mostly blogging from the press center!

What I can say about the arena is that it’s perfectly sized for ESC, in my opinion. A lot of people are talking about “small”, but it’s really not – it’s just a typical medium-sized arena that allows even the people in the “cheap seats” to enjoy a reasonable view of the stage (and the scoreboard, for that matter), and it clearly gives the production crew much more in the way of options. Everyone seems happy and comfortable here, and from what we’ve seen on the press centre TV screens, Malmö is going to play host to a memorable event.

Onward, then, to EuroClub and a morning hangover no doubt!