Dutch govt allows limited Eurovision audience
3,500 audience members will be allowed to attend, approximately 20% of Rotterdam's arena capacity.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Coronavirus, Eurovision, News
The Dutch Government has confirmed that the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam may proceed with a limited audience.
A maximum of 3,500 audience members will be allowed to enter the arena; approximately 20% of Rotterdam Ahoy’s capacity. Tickets are only available to those who successfully purchased tickets for the 2020 show – there will be no general public sale.
All audience members are expected to adhere to the strict health and safety protocols put in place by the Dutch Government.
Martin Österdahl, Eurovision Song Contest Executive Supervisor, said, “We are happy that the Dutch authorities have enabled us to welcome audiences at the 3 live shows and 6 dress rehearsals in Rotterdam in the safest possible way given the current circumstances.
“The world will be watching when we bring back the Eurovision Song Contest next month and, as millions enjoy the competition on TV and online, we are pleased that the hard work of the artists, delegations and crew will also be shared with a live audience in the Ahoy arena.”
Executive Producer Sietse Bakker added, “With 180 million viewers from over 45 countries, we will soon be in the international spotlight as a host country. We want to do this carefully and responsibly, so we are taking strict measures, with health and safety first.”
An extensive COVID-19 protocol is already in place for crew, press and artists, which has been tested by international agency SGS, the world leader in inspection, control, analysis and certification.
“The numbers have been scaled down considerably. Delegations are much smaller and most journalists will follow the Eurovision Song Contest from home this year in our online press centre. By testing everyone in Rotterdam Ahoy every 48 hours and getting artists to move within our ‘Safe Harbour’ zones, we want to keep the coronavirus out as much as possible,” Bakker added.
There are also no associated parties this year.
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8 Responses
3500 is roughly 20% of the arenas capacity. It’s the crowds in the rehearsals that really make no sense.
Actually cases in Denmark has roughly 500 – 1000 new cases per day. The vaccination program in Denmark is so far ahead of Australia. The difference now that in the UK and Europe we are adopting in living with COV instead of panicking over new cases. In a majority of the events that are allowing audiences they will be either vaccinated or prove a COV negative test before being allowed in. There has been many successful events that have been trialled.
This has got to be a joke? 3500 daily cases in a country that’s less than half the size of Australia? There should be 0 allowed to view *and* participate.
New cases are closer to 7.7k. I think the audience number is a total across 3 shows.
The Voice had no audience when our cases were relatively low in Sydney.
Sure… I wasn’t defending the decision. Up to them.
Its 3500 per show.
I wish it was a joke. The Netherlands has multiple public events being organized with large crowds, where people only need to show a negative test result that can be up to 48 hours old. And the government has caved under pressure from a small minority who claim that their freedom has been taken away by the Covid precautions & restrictions, so now the govt. has loosened the restrictions because they are taking a “calculates risk” to try to re-open while vaccinations are still lagging way behind, 1000s of people are getting infected every single day and dozens of people are still dying every day.