The third day of the 2021 rehearsals came and went, and with it the glorious display of the full possible range of approaches to Eurovision staging. This is true for every year, of course, but 2021 presented the addition of the long-standing Melodifestivalen tradition that is recorded playback vocals, which gives all delegations a lot more leeway when it comes to their staging. Even though I suspect the powers that be wanted to find a way to sneak that particular change in for a while now, the reason for it this year was of course to make things easier (and cheaper) for delegations – less people in each delegation, less work in terms of figuring out vocal arrangements and so on. In practice it meant that some delegations got more out of this than others.

It wasn’t hard to guess that a lot of the uptempo numbers would take full advantage of this and use their allotted quota in full for a dance routine in which they don’t have to sacrifice numbers or complexity in favor of backing vocals. It was also not hard to guess that some delegations would do it better than others. In the first semi, Cyprus was the one to use this best, being able to create a much more complex dance routine than they would have otherwise, which in turn allowed them to build a stage show that distracts from Elena’s limited stage presence just enough. To my great surprise, the delegation to figure this particular trick out in the second semi was Poland, building an entertaining routine around a lead singer who doesn’t contribute much in terms of presence or energy.

Light me up (flashlight)
(EBU / Andres Putting)

Then we have countries like the Czech Republic, who managed to forget everything they learned about Eurovision in the last few editions after so much time away and demonstrated that while it’s very nice to have five dancers with you on stage, it’s really not much help if there’s no one there behind the scenes to figure out a concept and provide direction. We know that there are always delegations that arrive with very little of their own and then get the host broadcaster to sort out the rest. It doesn’t always stand out, but sometimes it really does. I don’t know the finances of the Czech delegation, but one does have to wonder whether the little money that they did invest would have been better spent by bringing less dancers and more actual creativity to the staging.

Because context is everything, there are countries who manage to do the impossible and make a pre-recorded backing vocals stage dance routine feel like a downgrade. This achievement belongs to Moldova, of all countries. This is surprising considering the fact that not only it is the Dream Team behind this and they are not usually ones for downsizing anything, but more than that – Natalia is a good example of a singer who is generally pleasant to have on stage but also doesn’t bring much character to it. I wonder how Kirkorov reacted when he realized he paid for the Silver package while Greece got the Diamond upgrade.

Hasta la vista, baby! (EBU / Andres Putting)

The other corner of the budget-friendly zone takes the opposite approach, where it’s just the performer and the big big stage. It generally makes sense for slower songs – and isn’t uncommon anyway, but probably easier to justify when you don’t need to hide backing singers anywhere and you know that there’s a good chance no one else will have backing singers either. But even then, there’s a difference between minimalistic and “oops, we forgot our staging at home”.

Austria, at least as far as I can tell, is the former, which is the prerogative of delegations that have performers who can carry an entire song on their own. So when Vincent Bueno tells you “don’t worry about the singing, I’ve got this” and nails the song in rehearsal without trying too hard, it leaves you – if you were the Austrian director, that is – a lot of breathing space to think about how best to use all the available resources that come with the stage itself: the lights and the cameras.

Estonia, on the other hand, isn’t so lucky. Not only Uku is far from the vocal caliber of the Vincent Buenos of the world, he might have a camera-friendly face but performing anything that requires conveying emotions isn’t really his thing. It doesn’t mean that you can’t leave him alone on stage and get something out of it, but this can’t be done without other things happening around him. A dance routine is obviously not the way to go, but one option would be actually trying to tell a story. Unlike the Czech Republic, they actually do have non-abstract backdrops of lightning and stormy skies, the moon and the sea. But for all those elements are powerful in real life, on stage they’re just there, doing very little except looking pretty. Exactly like Uku.

A slightly different take on that approach is provided by Serbia. “Loco Loco” feels like a song that should have the crazy routine to go with it, and as their effort last year did have dancers, there were many reasons to assume they’d do the same this year. But last year when they needed live backing vocals, and it might have made more sense to use the extra people to also add to the stage show. The setup this year allows them to be the center of the show, which is important for vocal groups as they all need to use their three minutes to connect to the audience at home, and three members means less screen time. Any additional act around it would have distracted the audience even more. I’m yet to decide how I feel about the fact the staging also doesn’t come across as very loco, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Every night I need mi locco (EBU / Andres Putting)

Last but not least we have every Eurovision fan’s favorite (or guilty pleasure): the kitchen sink. Even here we see different artistic interpretations of the concept. Iceland, for example, offers a pretty literal one, as I’m about 98% sure the group just sat in Daði’s kitchen and just made a list of all the random things they want to take to Rotterdam with them and that he knows he has somewhere around the house, even if he has no idea exactly where. He also swears that he’s done with ordering oddly shaped vintage keyboards from Amazon when he can’t sleep and sure, he can totally stop at any time.

I might be projecting, though.

Do you know who also swears he can stop at any time? Fokas Evangelinos. He absolutely does not have issues with constantly adding more possible elements to his stage plans and being physically unable to stop. Yes, of course Stefania needs diamonds! Every girl needs diamonds! And stars, let’s add stars. Oh, can you check with Sergey if he’s done with the invisible steps? I really need them back. Oooh! I discovered a new software that does green screen effects. I wonder what this button does! And this? And maybe I can add this too! Does someone know how to save this and start a new file? Never mind, I’ll just use everything that I have here. What do you mean “Greece is complaining about their package upgrade not going through?” Look at all the things I gave them! What are they saying, that Moldova only has the silver package and they got dancers? OK, you know what, I’ll be generous and throw some dancers in. On the house!

Meanwhile, in a faraway land that is probably not San Marino, someone really needs to take the credit card from Senhit. Wigs, madonnas, babies, platforms, boots, aliens – you want it, she’s got it. Although she is still waiting for the Flo Rida she ordered to arrive. It’s probably stuck in customs. Does she really need all of that? That’s irrelevant.

Hello from Mars (EBU / Andres Putting)

If 2020 taught us one thing, it’s that you need to do things that bring you joy – and believe it or not, Marie Kondo, for some of us hoarding useless but really fun stuff that can someday be used as Eurovision stage props brings a lot of joy!