Eurovision sparkles

The Eurovision final was on the weekend. I’ll talk about the songs and results in another post. This one is all about the sparkles.

There are definite trends in the costuming and staging for Eurovision performers. One year it seemed everyone had flowing white dresses. Another year everyone used wind machines. This year it was all about silver sparkles (here are a few examples):

In terms of staging, strobe lighting seemed to be the trend. You can see some of it in the images above.

Of course, this means the Eurovision drinking game has to change every year in accordance with the trends. Honestly, those that participate would have been stonkered by the end of the finale this year if silver sparkles was on the list.

While some parts of the drinking game change, here are the staples (with the standard, have a drink when one of these things happens):

• The lights go dark suddenly and the music gets tense
• There’s an emotional power ballad
• The number of props on stage outnumber the people
• Someone hits a high note
• A song features a key change
• The wind machine is used
• The commentators mention a repeat contestant
• There is an indiscriminate and humongous piece of fabric waving around on stage
• Australia is mentioned
• Someone sings in more than one language
• Someone fake-plays an instrument on stage
• Costume changes during the performance

While we don’t participate in the drinking game, we usually still note it with comments like, “wind machine, drink time” or “wow, another catsuit, everyone drinking is going to be plastered”.

I’m not sure why silver sparkles were all the go this year. Anyone have a suggestion?

And in case you were wondering, it wasn’t just the women: