By Peter Makossah
Nottingham Castle will next month on Saturday, May 13 play host to a Eurovision live site to broadcast this year’s Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Nottingham has been announced as an official BBC broadcast partner for the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final, with the event being streamed live from Liverpool Arena on a giant screen measuring 28m squared, with a concert-quality sound system.
Nottingham is one of several confirmed UK cities to host an official Eurovision screening, allowing up to 30,000 people to participate in Eurovision celebrations across the country.
Nigel Hawkins, Head of Culture & Libraries at Nottingham City Council, said: “It is very exciting that Nottingham is one of the UK cities hosting an official Eurovision screening.
“The castle grounds will be a great venue for the celebrations, and we’re delighted that we can open the gates for this event before fully re-opening the castle to the public in June.”
The screening has been made possible thanks to funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The 2023 competition is due to take place at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool from May 9 -13, 2023 and Mae Muller is representing the United Kingdom with ‘I Wrote A Song’, which the singer recently performed live for the first time.
The show organisers have since confirmed that various cities across the UK will host “large-scale official screenings” of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final to “ensure as many people can join in the fun as possible”.
According to Nottingham City Council, the event will follow the live screenings of the Coronation and Coronation Concert on Saturday May 6th and Sunday May 7th and comes ahead of the castle fully re-opening in June.
Eurovision fans will be able to bring picnics and blankets to watch the Grand Final in the beautiful surroundings of the castle grounds. The castle’s visitor centre will also be open selling food and drink.
Due to limited capacity in the castle grounds, the council says, people will need to pre-book for the screening and tickets will cost £1 each emphasizing that this small nominal charge will cover the booking process costs which is inclusive of VAT and booking fees.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am onFriday 14 April and can be booked via the What’s On Nottingham website.
More information
Tickets will go on sale for the Eurovision screening, as well as the Coronation and Coronation Concert screenings at Nottingham Castle, on Friday 14 April at 10am via www.whatsonnottingham.com.
Event timings will be confirmed in due course.
Tickets for the screenings will cost £1 each. There is a limited capacity in the Nottingham Castle grounds, and pre-booked ticketing will allow Nottingham City Council to manage the number of attendees safely without exceeding demand.
It will also help to reduce the number of no shows, having been effective for previous events. The small nominal £1 charge is inclusive of VAT and booking fees to cover the cost of processing the tickets.
In the event of all tickets not being sold or tickets not being used on the day more than three hours after the advertised event start time, free admission will be granted on a first come, first served basis, however this cannot be guaranteed.
“It is very exciting that Nottingham is one of the UK cities hosting an official Eurovision screening.”
Nigel Hawkins
Head of Culture & Libraries at Nottingham City Council
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