Kvalifikacija za Millstreet: The race to Eurovision | Super-cut with animated scoreboard

Now I know this is posted slightly out of sequence, but this is an edited down version of the pre-selection show for Eurovision 1993 (Millstreet) with a scoreboard using today’s technology. Nothing but a fun lockdown project.

I hinted that the three newcomers to 1993 were the result of Eurovision’s first ever pre-selection competition, held in lovely Ljubljana. I wasn’t aware until after I had posted 1993 that the show was available on YouTube – and out of completeness, there was part of me that thought I could give this show a quick once over…more on the design choices below.

The choice of location made sense in one part, all the competitors, apart from Estonia, were in relatively easy reach. Slovenia was largely untouched by the war to the south, and as I suggested in my 1993 description, much of this year was dominated by the Croat-Bosniak War, with its atrocities being committed around the time this programme was being broadcast (3 April). I’ve left in the post-card for the Bosnian entry which obviously couldn’t just show nice shots of Bosnia in happier times. RTV SLO must have been the broadcaster most able (out of the 7) to put on this show. The production is a little ropey at times, sort of step back compared to what we’ve been seeing in the main show…but there is a full orchestra (who get a chance to perform at the end, after the reprise of the winning song), a video wall, a lit stage floor, and even an audience with dignitaries.

This was also one last job for Mr Naef too…I can imagine the chat in the office…’Frank, on your way out, could you just pop to Ljubljana and sort out how we’re going to get 3 new songs in the show?...No I don’t remember that rule about 22 songs being the limit, Frank - here’s your train tickets.‘

And so we have a 100 minute (yup!) show which takes time to allow the 7 competitors a chance to exhibit another song from their back catalogue but then rushes through the voting so quickly it’s hard to comprehend how Slovakia didn’t make it! Having said that, I think the juries got the selection right but it’s just a very tight scoring sequence - halfway through and two of the qualifiers are at the bottom end of the (admittedly short) board! One plus though, this is the first time since 1973 that we have seen juries in vision. 1994 would see it done a lot more expensively from Dublin!

*DESIGN AND THE BOARD*
Well this was really something I decided to try and fit in after work, so I hope you’ll excuse the lack of originality. I went with the idea that perhaps the SVT team would turn up with a rework of their graphics, and so I removed some of the Malmö specific elements of the 1992 show (which also keeps the channel house style) and tried to make it work quite quickly. The usual flourishes of top 5, relegation and ‘CanYouWin’ are all not required.

The actual graphic used was quite ‘over worked’, shall we say. Lots of bevels and then some interesting text weight choices. I’m not going to lie, Bosnia-Herzegovina causes scoreboard builders some issues and so it did here - making the board unbalanced by the long name. We’ll skip over the incorrect Estonian flag (bands are the wrong order), as the early 90s saw plenty of new flags appearing I’m sure it was easy to make a mistake!

Some of you might spot that RTÉ in 1994, and this programme has the Slovak flag with the shield in the centre…I can’t find any evidence that this is correct, in fact all the flag ordinances relating to that were dated around the same time that all specify it should be sat to the left – so I’ve gone with what we see more regularly today.

Unlike in 1990, it made more sense to have this board in Slovene. There’s a Google Translate and Wiki page in those languages, and they weren’t afraid of speaking for a lengthy periods to an international audience including Denmark and Portugal. The Cyrillic/Latin mix of Serbo-Croat made the board in 1990 harder to achieve.

*INTERVAL ACT*
7 songs! I think Millstreet was robbed of that Romanian performance (Dida Drăgan) though!
*CREDITS*
The great Eurovision Thailand Fanclub for this original posting
Flags: Hopnguyen Mr on IconFinder, Bosnia: Wikipedia.
All Copyright goes to RTV SLO.

00:00 Intro
02:34 Song super-cut
11:31 Voting intro
13:10 The reorder board KzM
22:10 Frank nearly drops the trophy and the winning song
24:28 Credits

Видео Kvalifikacija za Millstreet: The race to Eurovision | Super-cut with animated scoreboard канала thereorderboard : Eurovision