All Sold Out?
The sale of tickets for Eurovision 2005 concerts officially began on March 21, but tickets will not be available at Kyiv box offices for another week. Those who don’t want to wait that long can buy them online.
Cyber shoppers are in for an unpleasant surprise, however. The Web site of www.olvia.com.ua, the company that won the bid to act as the official ticket distributor, states that tickets cost UAH 800 and more. After only one day, what happened to the cheap tickets promised by Eurovision organizers? Olvia has tickets for 67,000 seats (8,000 for the finals, 8,000 for the semifinals, and the remaining tickets for 6 rehearsals). The ticket rush is due to the fact that, according to the contest rules, participating countries have a quota for one-third of all tickets. The other seats are booked by travel agencies, diplomats, official delegations, and television broadcasters.
As Interfax Ukraine learned from the First Transnational Tourist Company, which is also distributing tickets, there are no more 10-euro seats. Only 30 euro seats are left, but after adjustments for the cost of the distributor’s services, the price per ticket rises to 40 euros.
Why aren’t tickets available at box offices? As it turns out, they have not been printed yet, but companies are already selling vouchers to confirm seat reservations. According to the official ticket sales Web site www.eurovision2005.in.ua, the seating plan of the concert venue, the Sports Palace, is not ready yet, which means that specific seats can’t be booked. Organizers promise to prepare the seating plan of the concert hall in a few days.
Last week lots were drawn in Kyiv to decide on the order of performances by singers from participating countries. Applications came from 40 countries, but several days ago Lebanon officially withdrew from Eurovision 2005 for political reasons. The contest will be broadcast live, and includes a performance by an Israeli singer, which Lebanon finds objectionable because of its long history of conflicts with Israel.
As a result, only 39 contestants will be performing at Eurovision 2005 this May. Twenty-five singers will compete in the semifinals. The ten best performers will be selected based on the number of votes cast by a worldwide audience. In the finals they will be competing with the 14 singers who automatically qualified for this year’s Eurovision finals (representatives of countries that placed in the top ten at Eurovision 2004, plus contestants from Great Britain, Spain, Germany, and France, the countries comprising the organizing committee). The Ukrainian band Greenjolly (Gryndzholy) is seeded as number 16 among the 24 contestants in the finals. Let’s hope this number brings them luck.
