The Shamen. Photo : Nemeton

90’s Scottish Electronic/Trance/Dance band The Shamen sang that they could ‘Move Any Mountain’ and that might be the challenge for Vienna now if they want to host Eurovision 2015.

The 3 cities hoping to host Eurovision 2015 and Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna. 3 venues had been inspected by ORF for suitability for the contest. There had been speculation that Vienna had potentially 2 venues in the running – Wiener Stadthalle and Neu Marx.

With local media now claiming that Neu Marx could be a financial bridge too far to ORF and Vienna to renovate for the contest, that could leave Wiener Stadthalle as Vienna’s only option for Eurovision 2015.

So is the venue free for Eurovision? 

Well the contest is scheduled to take place on May 19th/21st and the Grand Final on May 23rd. It is not an insurmountable task to move a couple of pre-booked events. However what if there are 7 scheduled events already on sale for the Wiener Stadthalle in the run up to the Grand Final of Eurovision?

For arguments sake lets say that the hall needs to be cleared approximately 6 weeks before the Grand Final of the contest – 2 weeks for rehearsals and 4 weeks to build and test the Eurovision stage. So let’s see if the Wiener Stadthalle is free?

Wiener Stadthalle. Photo : Wiener Stadthalle Website

We have ‘James Last and his Orchestra’ doing their thang, ‘Esoteric days Spring 2015’ will have several days of exhibitions, ‘Apassionata 2015 – The Golden Trail’ will see the venue filled with horses (there is a ‘Father Ted Eurovision’ joke in there somewhere), ‘Max Raabe & Palast Orchester tour 2015 – New Program’ with their mix of old and contemporary classics and then the ‘Ehrlich Brothers’ will cast a spell on you with their illusions. Maybe they can magic Neu Marx as a potential venue.

Tickets for all the events are still on sale at the Wiener Stadthalle. So that is potentially 7 events that would need to be relocated to another venue to free up Vienna’s potential Eurovision 2015 venue.

If Innsbruck was to win the bid to host the contest then the Olympiaworld Stadium would be a smaller scaled contest with the potential capacity of the hall being 10 thousand. However Ricky Lake taught me “Big Is Beautiful” countless times on her shows.

So these are the challenges facing ORF in their search for their ultimate Eurovision 2015 venue.

So we ask you again where would you like to go for Eurovision 2015?

So far 75% of you have said that you would like to go to Vienna next year. Can this happen?

Author/Editor in Chief Garrett Mulhall

Source : Eurovision Ireland and Wiener Stadthalle